Lemonade Stand Components Overview and Impressions

Lemonade Stand has a charming production for younger board game fans, and I really like that about the title. It lacks some of the frills you might find in a more adult centric experience, but that doesn’t make this any less great overall. Outside of the fairly bland customer tiles, everything else here is pretty impressive!

And with that said, let’s get the first bit out of the way first. The cardboard used in this game is very, very good. It’s nice and thick and will stand up to a lot of handling, especially by kids who might not be as careful with the pieces as an adult. The artwork on each depicts a customer and the lemonade they would prefer, and while it’s very usable and obvious for kids playing, I did think the tokens overall lacked a bit of flair. This definitely could have been a design choice to keep things simple for kids, but it was something I noticed none-the-less.

The other cardboard components in the game are puzzle piece lemonade stand pieces that you will purchase to start the game to build your stand within a border. These puzzle pieces are great, and it’s a really fun way to start the game. The bank and store are also built like the stands using puzzle pieces, and I think that’s a nice, unique touch for a kids game.

The game uses paper money in $1 and $5 denominations. The money is pretty solid here, it has a nice glossy feel that will hold up well over time. I think the iconography on the money is clear, and the use of two different colours for each of the denominations was a great production decision.

The most impressive element in the box are the little lemonade cups that come in two types – standard lemonade and fancy lemonade. These little plastic cups are sculpted beautifully, and you get a ton of them in the box as well. My kids had as much fun playing with the little plastic cups as they did playing the game. The round bases make them easy to stand up on your player board, and they don’t topple easily. When I think about kids’ games, I’m often left disappointed because so little care is put into the production. It’s not often you get nice little plastic pieces like this in a kids game – usually it’s just a ton of cardboard chits. I’m glad to see this being done here.

Overall, I think the production of Lemonade Stand is really good. Again, I would have liked to see a bit more flair on the customer tiles, but everything else is cleverly thought out and implemented with kids in mind. Hats off to the production team on this one, I think they really nailed it!