Best of BrickNerd - Article originally published July 29, 2021.

I thought it would be a hoot to change things up a bit from the usual article and share with you all some fun facts about the BrickNerd team. But I didn’t want it to be just any facts. It had to relate to our favorite hobby and be something that might make for an interesting read and maybe some eye-catching pictures… So today you’ll learn the most important fact about each of us: where we buy our LEGO!

I’ve assembled a set of info sheets like baseball trading cards that depict the LEGO store visit stats for each of the contributors who volunteered to participate and provide me data. I also created a digital mosaic of the world in BrickLink Studio to show the stores on a map. Then each participant who wanted to could tell a story from one or more of their visits. Finally, after you scroll through the individual team members, I’ll share some stats of the group as a whole (because we are nerds and we love our stats and charts!).

Before we dive in, there are three caveats I’d like to mention:

The article title suggests a sole focus on PAB (Pick-a-Brick wall), and it’s true that PAB is one of the top draws for AFOLs at any LEGO, however I asked the BrickNerd participants in my little experiment here to list all “official” LEGO stores they’ve visited (be it a certified store, a LEGOLAND store, an airport store or other) to buy LEGO in any form.
It may be obvious, but I’ll state anyway that many of these visits were second fiddle to some other purpose like a convention or a vacation—and often the person didn’t fly straight there. But it was an interesting lens to measure the distance from home to the farthest location visited even so!
We realize that having a LEGO Store nearby or even traveling long distances are luxuries that many of our readers (and even a few of our contributors!) don’t have access to. We are telling these stories to share the global experiences we’ve had in the hopes that everyone will be able to travel again soon.

So, you already know we’re crazy about LEGO, but who has gone the furthest to buy bricks? Who has visited the most LEGO Stores? And which LEGO Store has been visited by the most BrickNerd contributors? Read on to find out!

Ted Andes

Ted’s store visits outside of his hometown seem to have been the unexpected result of another purpose:

“Almost all my store visits have been on various business trips, either my own or ones where I tagged along with my wife (that would be the NY, NY store at Rockefeller Center). The best are the ones where I have driven my own car or a rental, so I can bring back as much as I want. One time I had my boss tag along, and I helped pick out a good set for her to get for her son.”

Sue Ann Barber

Sue Ann’s anecdotes involve a pretty funny “whoops moment” and an even funnier AFOL moment:

“I found bulk Clikit pieces at the PaB at Legoland Billund in 2003 and then had the bag accidentally open in our suitcase on the way home. We were finding Clikit pieces in the lining for at least 5 years after that!”
“My AFOL-in-training partner grabbed a handful of purple 2x4 bricks in Legoland Germany and discovered he was as close to 100 grams as was possible. He then ran through the Pick a Brick area yelling “I AM AN AFOL”.”

Marco Den Besten

Marco’s story explains the hilarious picture in his profile card above:

“My very first holiday with my then girlfriend was to the Oberhausen store back in 2010. Back then stores weren’t that familiar with us crazy AFOLs. We entered the store, me in a LEGO t-shirt and my girlfriend. Also committed to the store visit, she was wearing an “I’m with the AFOL t-shirt”. The manager loved that so much he gave her a few keychains.”

Geneva Durand

Geneva’s story is about the amazing memory of a LEGO store employee:

“I went to the LEGO store in Concepcion a couple times when I was younger (12 or so) with my family, then I went again when I was eighteen or so with two of my brothers and the employees legit recognized us! I guess we really stuck out the first time, since I have so many younger siblings. The moment of them being like… wait a minute, are you from that family of lots of kids that used to come… and we’re like… wow you recognize us six years later?!”

Teresa Elsmore

Teresa has a most unusual second-most-visited store—see what she had to say about it:

“Disney Springs, Florida is my second most visited store, after Glasgow, UK. I attended an annual tech conference in Orlando for nearly a decade and would visit the store at least once on each occasion.“

And she also wrote up a BrickNerd article about another store right down the street from where she lives!

Are Heiseldal

As usual, Are has some entertaining stories to share!

“I’ve had some layovers in Copenhagen on flights from Billund to Bergen (Norway) where I live, and if the layover is more than two hours there’s just enough time to catch the subway into town, visit the LEGO Store there and get back to the airport. I’ve done that a couple of times… because there are no LEGO Stores in Norway, so visiting one is a rare occasion!”
“When I visited the Watford UK store, there was a lady who was picking Build a Minifigure accessories from a big plastic tub into a PAB cup. I asked if I could also do that, and was told they’d ask the manager. The reply was that she was allowed to because she had helped them with something, so to return the favour they let pick a PAB cup full of minifig accessories… but if I wanted to, they’d let me do the same. And I most certainly wanted to!”
“I was also lucky enough to be able to put a MOC in the showcase at Stratford at one point (through Brickish, the UK RLUG), which was a really cool experience.”

Are’s moc that was displayed at Stratford. Specifically: The hangar was built by Naomi and Stuart Ctawshaw, the ship by Are.

Noah Hennings

Noah has a couple neat international visits he wanted to share:

“Of course I have to mention my stores in Munich ;) but I will mention the one at Disney Springs not only has a decent selection of PAB, but the employees and store layout are fantastic. The same could be said for the Tysons Corner store during BrickFair Virginia.”
“In 2019, I was preparing to fly home from the På Kloss Hold convention in Trondheim, Norway when the night before, we were informed that some of the airlines went on strike and that me and some of my fellow LUG mates might be stuck in Norway for a few days. We made our way to the airport in the morning to see what could be done and with luck, I was able to get a flight home through Copenhagen. Obviously, there was a catch—an 8-hour layover. When I got there, I was curious to see if I could be in the city, see some of the sights and of course, visit the LEGO Store there. I remember how when I walked to the back PAB section, I was amazed to see the selection that I instantly wrote to my other LUG members if they wanted some. In the end, I picked up 8 cups for all of us which I somehow managed to fit in my already tightly packed carry-on. Probably my favorite LEGO store story.”

Doug Hughes

Probably my favorite story of a LEGO store visit is when I flew to Chicago for a weekend trip with a friend, and we visited the Schaumburg Illinois - Woodfield Mall (USA) store. We stopped at the LEGO store there (a bit out of the way from our main trip to Chicago) because we were already going to the mall to visit the now sadly shuttered From Blocks to Bricks toy museum run by the former LEGO employee Adam Reed Tucker. My MOC the Seanchan Greatship had been displayed there for about a year and I wanted to make sure to visit and see it in place before they inevitably sent it home to me.

Adam gave us a wonderful personal tour and threw in the special behind-the-scenes extras like visiting his magnificent hidden office and we hung out and chatted there for a while. It was a really neat visit, and I’m definitely sad the museum didn’t make it through the COVID tough times.

As you can see in the picture above, during our tour we were carrying LEGO bags full of PAB parts after hitting up the mall LEGO store, so though I don’t remember much about the store itself, I’ll never forget the visit!

In addition to my visit to Schaumberg I should also mention that the Tokyo, Japan subway station store was incredibly hard to find in the giant warren of shopping and food and amazingness (not to mention the actual huge station full of trains) that makes up that complex. But the hunt was quite entertaining.

Nick Jensen

Here’s two stories Nick shared with me regarding his LEGO store travels:

“While I attended community college at McHenry County College, I had a couple semesters where I took classes at College of Lake County, near Gurnee, IL. Midway through one semester, the Gurnee Mills LEGO store was opened, so almost weekly I would add 20 minutes of travel and an undisclosed amount of time for browsing the Gurnee Mills store and ease the pain of commuting for a 50 minute class twice a week.”
“Sometimes, I am able to convince friends who aren’t LEGO fans themselves to come with me to the LEGO Store. One time, one friend said to me, paraphrasing, “Take a minute and look around you, and tell me the age range of everyone else in this store right now.” What are friends for, if not to poke fun at you for a hobby involving a kid’s toy?”

Gwyneth Kozbial

Gwyneth had a unique and inspiring international story to share:

“How amazing is LEGO customer service? Because we would be in Stockholm for a month and didn't want to miss a minibuild, I asked customer service how I might register to take part there. The rep in Connecticut did a lot of research to find the answer, and my kids got the full Swedish experience.”

Bart Larrow

Bart’s store visits seem to align with vacations which makes for a great bonus for any trip!

"A lot of the LEGO Stores we visited were during family trips when my son was little; Mystic Aquarium, Historic Williamsburg, and of course, Brickworld. But nowadays, going to a LEGO Store is just part of the routine whenever we go on vacation."

Andreas Lenander

Andreas’ story involves a very patient and helpful family member:

“One fun story is actually about my wife visiting the LEGO Store in Berlin and not me. I had been to that store a few years earlier and bought a few things but that was when my ”AFOLness” was still in its infancy. So when my wife was going to Berlin with her job I asked if she could swing by that store and perhaps check out the PaB-wall. Being the awesome wife that she is she agreed, and to make sure I got some great pieces she ended up Facetiming me when she was there and filmed the entire wall for me! It must have looked hilarious but she came home with 5 large cups of awesomeness and I am forever grateful for that, haha!”

Michael J

Michael tells me the typical experience at LEGO stores is kind and helpful employees, and he shared a story regarding his stop at Disney:

“The Downtown Disney store always had a magical feel to it and not “Disney Magic”—the wall of minifigures behind the registers, all the excited kids, and the LEGO sculptures in and around the store really had a magical feel. Maybe it’s nostalgia twinged, it is bigger than my current home store, and going to it was always an event, as we lived about an hour away and only made it in a few times a year when on other day trips into Orlando, but I do miss it.”

Sergio Rojas

Sergio experienced kindness as well, after another “whoops moment” at a store:

“In Billund, I was carrying a PAB cup full of small elements (plate 1x2 or smaller) and I decided to check the store one last time before payment, too bad the cup hit a shelf, fell to the ground and it broke, spilling most of the content. I wanted to crawl under a rock but the employees were really kind and helped me to pick up the elements in a new cup.”

Markus Rollbuhler

Markus visits stores for the best of reasons… when he’s hanging out with his AFOL friends! He explains here:

“I really only visit LEGO Stores when I’m at conventions – the list shows that, I feel. Case in point: The store in town in LEGO House. I really only stop by when Fanweekend Skærbæk is on, or when I get a nice email from the manager asking me to sign boxes – but since the store is closed for those occasions it doesn’t count. Can we have conventions again?”

Dave Schefcik

Dave tells me of one of his more interesting encounters including a case of mistaken identity:

“I was traveling in China in the Fall a few years ago and was wearing a black jacket with a LEGO logo on it that I got during one of my visits to Billund. At the Beijing flagship store, I was so excited to look around and see all the cool builds, evaluate what was available on the Pick-A-Brick wall, and see the prices of all the sets in a different currency. Apparently, I was looking at everything a bit too closely because several store employees started following me, taking note of what I looked at, and even quickly dusted off a beautiful (and already-immaculate) in-store build of a jade dragon after I ran my hand over it. Eventually, the store manager came up and asked me if everything was up to standard. That’s when I realized they must have thought I was doing some kind of impromptu inspection! I told him I was just a fan and excited to be there, we had a good laugh, and then traded sigfigs. (Though I did mention that his store was one of the cleanest I had ever seen which made the manager beam from ear to ear!)”

Francesco Spreafico

Francesco says he doesn’t have any entertaining stories - but I don’t believe him! Either way, he did have a comment to share:

“I do have too many passports, with stamps spread all over them, instead all on the same one. :/”

Group Statistics

First of all, I was flabbergasted by the breadth of stores our team has made their way to over the years. Incredibly we covered different 148 LEGO retail locations over 5 continents and 17 countries!

Here’s the breakdown by continent and country:

The furthest trip was Sue Ann Barber who visited Glasgow in the UK which is a whopping 10,565 mi from her home town of Melbourne Australia.

Next up, the most prolific shopper was Teresa visiting a grand total of 47 different LEGO shops!! Close behind her were Sue Ann and Dave.

Finally… what’s our collective favorite store - or the store the most of us have visited?

Shockingly, we’ve visited the Schaumberg Woodfield Mall location near Chicago, IL, USA the most! (Must have something to do with a nearby LEGO convention.) This just edged out a more obvious contender: the LEGO House in Billund.

And that’s that… what a tour of our ridiculous spending and or travel habits. We at BrickNerd sure do love shoveling piles of ABS into cups! Looking at the amazing spread of our illustrious contributors’ LEGO store visits maybe the better question would have been “where don’t we go to buy our LEGO?!”

It was a fun exercise to explore where we’ve all been in the world, but it makes me wonder which stores you readers have all been to and do you have any fun stories from the visit? Let us know in the chat below!

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