LEGO® Set Review: 6350 Pizza To Go
See also Brian Kendig’s review

6350

[6350 Set Photo] Pizza To Go (us)
 Pizza a emporter (fr)
 Pizza Para Llevar (es)
Town System Banner Recreation Banner
Town System / Recreation

Ages 6-10 / 143 Pcs
11 page manual: 2 models, 13+14 steps. ©1994
Price Range: $21.95 CAD ($9.50 via special promotional specials): 15 cents/piece

Review Written: 11 March 1996 by Calum Tsang
Special Features / Compatibility
  • None
    		• Extra Elements
  • One 1x1 Round Plate in Transparent Yellow
    		• Decals: Yes
    Scale: Minifigure scale
    Errors: Misprinted normal smile face on the delivery man head
    Ratings: Set: Excellent Models: Excellent Playability: Excellent
    Conclusion
    I would definitely recommend Pizza to Go as a must have for Town collectors. However, the price to size of model ratio is high—it often looks like you’re not getting a lot.

    Description

    [Editor’s Note: The theme Recreation does not actually exist in the U.S. I am basing the name of the theme on the 1995 German catalog, which puts this set in the “Freizeit” (Free Time) theme.]

    The Pizza to Go is a little pizza storefront for LEGOLand Town. The white with red trim building has a small table w/umbrella and service counter up front, and a pizza oven and other neat features in the back. There’s a tap and a small counter to facilitate the making of pizzas. The structure is basically a stand and a small tower, with a decorative arch and roofs.

    Done in a very pretty architecture style, much like the buildings you keep seeing in amusement parks, or in more touristy parts of the world, my girlfriend commented that it looks sort of like a Taco Bell.

    This set includes a small delivery truck. It’s much like a postal truck, where the operator can stand in the doorway (there is no door though) or sit in the seat. In the back are slots for pizzas, with a nice door made from the older shuttered window part.

    You also get three minifigures. A cook, complete with Chef Boyardee-esque attire and puffy chef hat, plus a funny moustached face which is amusingly appropriate, the sort of stereotype you expect to work at the pizza stand. A delivery man, with overalls, white cap, and normal face, and a woman, with odd top (some sort of strapless bodice for a dress, yet no skirt) and an absolutely ugly face (red lips and large eyelashes). She has the nice black ponytail hair piece.

    Impression

    I’d read reviews of Pizza to Go before, and knew people liked it. Now that I’ve bought and assembled it, I like it too. But the price of $22 was quite high for what you got (although in retrospect, you do get quite a lot of pieces you don't see up front). When a sale came up, 15% storewide at the Bay, and combined with 12 dollars of promotional dollars, the set ended up being $9.50. There I was, in the LEGO aisle of the store with my trusty Casio CMD40B calculator and universal IR remote watch, keying in all these discounts :)

    As a set, I’d have to say it’s not too great a value at first look. The models are small, and a lot of the pieces you don’t see from the box. But I think we should all buy this set to tell LEGO that we need less Race and Rescue sets and more general sets and buildings. I am thinking of buying another if on sale to make the pizza place larger, and maybe with a few seats, to fit an “island block” part of a road plates. I might even use some spare pieces.

    Some notes about the box: One of the alternate settings is of a car show display, with pizzas around a new car. And the woman is sort of sprawled on top. I found that disturbing, and even if it’s on the back of the box, kids are gonna think women just sit on cars all day. More to add to my dislike of the female figure in this set.

    Another thing I noticed about the Pizza to Go: The pizza pieces, 2x2 round tiles, do not fit in the trashcan! That means LEGO is saying we shouldn't waste food. Wow, a moral in piece design!

    Ratings

    Set Rating:Excellent

    For one, the pieces are excellent, there’s fabulous collection of parts here, that I know I—and I think you—will enjoy. Even set aside the pizzas, cup, neat chef minifigure, and look at the stylistic pieces, like the roof parts and the arch. I mean, that’s design. And all those basic bricks, The LEGO Group could have just taken the easy route out and did a Surf Shack like structure. This looks solid and well built, like a real building, not a statically indeterminate (yay CIV100S!) thing.

    However, as a set, as in a collection of playthings, Pizza To Go is really expensive for what you get. I have to say, if it were not for the price that I got it for, I probably would have put off buying it even longer.

    Model Rating:Excellent

    The overall look of the set is pretty nifty, and I have to praise The LEGO Group for doing such a good job with the tower part and the little arch and pretty roof. From a design perspective, everything for a pizza business are there. I’d like the model to be a bit larger, but my major bug is the female figure they include, which I feel is dressed in a silly manner, and has such a goofy look on her face. What happened to solid coloured figures with simple smiling faces? The truck, while a good design, has an odd front, which I rebuilt with a space ladder piece as a grill.

    But other than that, I’m pretty happy. Not “MetroLiner happy”, but, that’s a $270 set as opposed to a $22 set.

    Playability Rating:Excellent

    Not too long ago, I commented that The LEGO Group is dividing along gender stereotypes for their set designs—Police and Race action for boys, pretty cute pastel vanities for girls. Here is a set which I think could appeal to both boys and girls. It’s a general Town set, there’s action involved, sure, but there’s a nice building, some social interaction going on, learning to work as a team, et cetera, instead of a sole mad race car driver speeding like hell across a metropolis.

    A friend drew a funny cartoon of a Pizza To Go truck being pulled over by a LEGO policeman on a motorcycle for speeding a pizza to it’s purchaser. To me, that’s indicative of the compatibility of this set with other Town sets.

    Likes/Dislikes

    Major dislikes are few, perhaps the cost of the set in relation to the size of the models is disrtacting and the female figure, which others may like, I do not. Other small dislikes are the front of the truck and the lack of a cash register piece, which for one piece, would have made the building complete in my view.

    Big pluses include the cool building, the arch/tower/roofs, the pizza oven, the pizza chef, his hat :) the ponytail hair etc. The little truck is certainly very cute, and I like the innovative door frame where one can stand a figure, and the back door to put the pizzas. Overall, a well designed set.

    Other likes are the stickers, they’re decorative, and while they do cover multiple pieces, the pair of white 1x8 bricks that are covered by the main sign are not integral to the frame (this has fallen off in my hand four times since building it) That means you can reuse this “sign” piece in a larger pizzeria later, or even as a billboard. That lessens the impact of covering multiple pieces, at least for the building.

    Elements

  • 1 6x8 red lightly slanted roof piece (also found in 4022)
  • 4 3x3 red lightly slanted roof pieces
  • 1 transparent cup
  • 5 2x2 yellow round flat tile pizza pieces (printed with pizza) *
  • 1 brown oar to lift pizzas out of oven
  • 1 4x4 round classic radar dish, white with umbrella pattern
  • 1 2x2x2 white space lander strut (as table)
  • 1 dark grey trashcan
  • 1 3x3x1 black right door
  • 1 8x16 grey flat baseplate
  • 1 chef hat (cool!)
  • 1 black ponytail hair piece (undoubtably my favourite female hair)
  • 1 2x1 white/grey tap piece
  • 1 4x1x1 white small arch
    *-new

    For a set with 142 pieces, Pizza to Go has a lot of nifty specialized parts, and the rest are all basic bricks. Wow! What a combination! Normal pieces and special ones that are useful? We haven't seen that in a while.

    Decals

    Attractive, but cover multiple bricks
    Reviewer Information
    Reviewer Name Age (at review) E-Mail WWW Favorite Theme
    Calum Tsang 18 tsangc@ecf.utoronto.ca http://www.io.org/~tsangc/lego.html Town / Trains / Boats / DACTA

    Look, the pizzeria is on my nightstand next to my alarm clock. Why bother trying to convince you guys that I want to fit it into my town? :)

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