City

Shopping Street

The set that finally let your City streets snap together like real blocks.

Brick Rated Score

3.4/5

Set 60306 · 2021

Pieces533

Minifigs6

Year2021

Set number60306

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The verdict

This is the set that introduced the modular road plates, and honestly, that little system is the reason to own it.

The plates are smaller, sturdier, and they clip together with markings, ramps, and a printed crosswalk, so your town stops being a jumble of loose baseplates. I just wish the actual shops had matched that ambition, because the buildings here are tiny. If you are laying out a City layout and want the road backbone, this earns its place. If you came for detailed storefronts, temper your expectations.

Best for: City layout builders who want the modular road plate system

The full review

What it is

The first thing that grabbed me here was not a shop at all. It was the road. Shopping Street is one of the sets that launched LEGO's modular road plate system, and those plates changed how a City layout feels to build. You get two 16x16 road sections and a smaller crossing plate, and they clip together with connection points for markings, speed bumps, and ramps. After years of wrestling wide, warping baseplates, snapping a street together like actual bricks felt like a small revolution on my table.

The catch

So I want to be honest about where the set stops delivering. The name promises shopping, but the emphasis lands almost entirely on the street. The bakery and the bike shop are charming in silhouette, yet they are genuinely tiny, with barely any interior room for a minifigure to stand, let alone a shopkeeping scene. Reviewers across Brickset and True North Bricks landed in the same place I did: the vehicles and the road are the highlights, and that is a little deflating when you expected the buildings to be the stars. At the original 79.99 USD, with structures this small, the price raised eyebrows on release, and it still does when you weigh what actually ends up on the shelf.

Who it's for

Here is who I would point toward it. If you are building out a City and you want the road infrastructure, the plates alone make this a smart buy, especially since you also pocket six figures, a lovely little sports car, and a service truck with a working cherry picker. Kids will adore it too, because everything rolls, snaps, and plays fast. If you are an adult builder chasing dense, detailed architecture and clever internal design, this is not the set that will satisfy that itch, and you will feel the small footprint keenly. Worth noting: it left shelves in 2022, so it now trades above its old retail on the secondary market, which nudges the value math further. Go in for the roads and the play, not for the shopping.

The parts story

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

The build itself is quick and friendly, the kind of afternoon project you finish in an hour or two without ever getting stuck. The road plates go together first and they are not complicated, but pairing them with the sports car gives the whole thing a satisfying rhythm. Nothing here will challenge an experienced builder, and that is fine, because the point is play and layout rather than engineering puzzles.

The standout part story is those road plates. They were brand new at the time, a smaller and sturdier take on the old baseplate, and the printed crossing section is the piece people actually chase this set for. The bike shop hides a lovely bit of parts usage too: its roof is angled up like a little mountain range so a mountain bike can perch on top, which is easily the most creative building on the street. The cargo bike and the cherry-picker truck add some nice functional elements. For 533 pieces you are paying more for the road system and the figures than for raw brick count, so judge the value through that lens.

Fun facts

01Shopping Street was one of the sets that debuted LEGO's modular road plate system in 2021, replacing the large printed baseplates City had used for decades.
02None of the six minifigures in this set have double-sided heads, which is unusual for a City set of this size.
03The set retired in 2022 after a short run and now typically sells above its original 79.99 USD retail on the secondary market.
04The bike shop's roof is deliberately shaped like a small mountain range so a mountain bike can be mounted on top of it.