Woohoo! Lego Store in Shepherds Bush

So it has been open since before Christmas, but they did their big grand opening recently (for various reasons).

I paid them a visit to see what I made of it.

First the staff - the store was pretty busy, but the staff were friendly and chatty. They were not necessarily all Lego nuts, but they did know the product and they did help out, including answering a bunch of questions. We were buying stuff for our daughter which helped.

There is a fairly good selection of Lego, including the Mindstorms and Lego Technic kit. The NXT 2.0 set was there - with quite a few stocked, as well as many of the power functions motors, battery boxes, cables and controllers - these were just on a simple plain rack so those a little more technical could grab exactly what power gear they needed.

The Pick-a-brick setup, if you aren't familiar with the idea, is a bunch of buckets arranged on a wall with scoops to measure out lego bricks, and you are charged for what you take. Very simple way if you need that many red fence pieces or some similar thing. Obviously there is only a limited number of boxes, so don't expect to find obscure or technic pieces.

There is a "make-your-own-minifig" area, where punters can select heads, headgear, tools, bodys, legs and other accessories to make a minifig, then pay to take that home. Boxes for them are provided.

Also in the store, the current flavour of the month is displayed as we went in, Lego Hero Factory theme.

The layout is pretty well thought out, given that youngsters will want to run around, and there was a very big bucket of duplo set into a table with two studded surfaces, so the toddlers can build towers (as our little one did). Or indeed knock each others over. Each Lego theme has a separate area on the wall, including some special bits.

There were some interesting kits I've not seen before like a minifig display case. In terms of branded accessories, there were wallets - in white with the Logo, many minifig and tiny model keyrings, Lego cups, Lego beach towels and a white satchel. Shame none were in darker colours, and a shame that they had none of the other apparel.

In all - it is worth visiting a Lego store, there will always be something to find there, and if it is the shepherds Bush Westfield one, then there are other shops to see - they've a number of gadget shops with robots, nerf guns and similar there.