Friends

Main Street Building

The closest Friends has come to its own little Assembly Square.

Brick Rated Score

4.3/5

Set 41704 · 2022

Pieces1,682

Minifigs8

Year2022

Set number41704

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The verdict

This is the biggest Friends set LEGO had made when it landed, and it earns the size by giving you three separate shops you can rearrange however you like.

The hairdresser, the food market, and the book cafe all stand on their own, so you're really getting a customizable little street rather than one fixed facade. The minidoll lineup finally includes a wheelchair user and a blind character with a guide dog, which quietly makes it one of the warmest boxes in the theme. If you like modular buildings but want more color and life than the grey City blocks, this is a lovely place to start.

Best for: Friends fans and modular collectors who want a colorful, rearrangeable street

The full review

What it is

The thing that won me over about this LEGO® set is that it isn't really one building at all. It's three: a hairdresser, an international food market, and a cozy book cafe, each on its own base, each able to snap onto the next in whatever order you fancy. That means you're not locked into a single look. You can run them along a shelf as a straight street, wrap them into a corner, or split them up entirely and mix them with other Friends builds. For 1,682 pieces this was the largest Friends box LEGO had ever released when it came out in 2022, and it feels like the theme's answer to the grown-up modular buildings, just brighter and a lot more welcoming.

The catch

I'll be straight with you about the money, because that's the part that stings. It launched at 149.99 dollars, which was steep for Friends, and it retired at the end of 2023, so the only way to grab a sealed one now is the secondhand market, where prices have drifted past 200 dollars. That's a lot to ask. And because this is a play set rather than a display-first modular, the building style is a little looser. The walls aren't as densely detailed as an Assembly Square, the roofs come off easily for play, and if you're the kind of builder who lives for tight, clever SNOT engineering, you'll find this gentler than you might want. It's designed to be opened up and played in, not admired behind glass.

Who it's for

Here's who I'd point toward it. If you love the Friends world, or you want a modular-style street with actual personality and color instead of another beige office block, this is a joy. The rearrangeable shops give it real staying power, and the cast genuinely matters: having a wheelchair user with bright green wheels and a blind character with a guide dog in the box makes the whole thing feel thought through in a way LEGO doesn't always manage. City builders looking to loosen up their grey layouts will find plenty to borrow here too. Who should skip it? If you only chase the polished Creator Expert modulars and you're paying inflated retired prices for the privilege, you might feel the play-set softness and wish you'd put the money toward a Bookshop instead. But taken for what it is, a friendly, flexible, colorful street full of good bricks, it's easy to recommend.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

The build breaks into three clear chunks, which is part of the fun, because you can hand a bag to different people and race. You start with the hairdresser, move through the food market with its little produce stalls and awnings, and finish on the book cafe, which is the coziest of the three. One team clocked it at around three hours and forty minutes together, so figure a relaxed afternoon solo. Nothing here is going to fight you technically. The techniques stay friendly, roofs lift off for play, and the joy is in the color blocking and the shop details rather than in any single hard section. It paces beautifully for a shared build.

For parts hunters there's a surprising amount of treasure. New Elementary counted 59 elements that appear in fewer than five other sets, and 21 of those are unique recolors made just for this box, which is a serious ratio for a Friends set. The standout newcomers are four of the 3x6 door in transparent light blue, a fresh mould for 2022, and Goldie, a completely new long-haired dog element printed with white eyes in black. Add in Harper's bright green wheelchair wheels, a white cane, and all the market produce and salon bits, and you've got a parts pile that MOC builders will happily raid. At its old retail the part-count value was fair, and the sheer variety of recolors is the real draw here.

Fun facts

01At 1,682 pieces it was the largest LEGO Friends set ever released at launch, edging out the 2015 Heartlake Grand Hotel by 110 pieces.
02It introduced Goldie, an all-new long-haired guide dog element, alongside Savannah, a blind minidoll who comes with a white cane.
03Harper's wheelchair rolls on bright green wheels, part of a deliberate push to put disabled characters into the Friends world.
04The three shops sit on separate bases and reconnect in any order, which is why reviewers kept calling it the Friends take on a Creator Expert modular street.