I tested the Melissa & Doug Fresh Mart Grocery Store for an article I wrote on the best toy kitchens for kids, and it's the best toy my children have ever played with. I sing its praises for one reason - because no other toy has ever come close to keeping my daughter engaged for as many happy hours of imaginative play. It's a toy she never tired of and even though we passed it down to a younger family friend a long while ago, she still talks about it several years later and remembers it fondly.
Right now you can get the Melissa & DougFresh Mart Grocery Store for £179.99 at Amazon, which is 31% off the best toy I've genuinely ever owned. See our best Black Friday toy deals page for more details.
As a parenting journalist I've been writing and reviewing toys for over a decade and I particularly rate Melissa & Doug toys because they spark children's imaginations and encourage creative roleplay whilst still being robust and durable. I have featured Melissa & Doug toys in many of our toy roundups including our guide to this year's top Christmas toys - so you can imagine my delight when I spotted this Black Friday toy deal at Amazon.
As a shopping editor and mum of three, I'm choosy about the toys I suggest and tend to only recommend items that hold my children's attention - which not all toys do. A well-crafted free-standing wooden grocery store, it's also impressively robust and can withstand even the most high-energy play dates. We found that friends who came to visit were drawn to playing with the Melissa & Doug Fresh Mart Grocery Store, so much so that they had to be dragged away from it at home time. It's an excellent toy for several children to play with together too, with lots of space for more than one child to play at being customers while another plays the shopkeeper.
When we reviewed this wooden grocery store, I found that my daughter particularly enjoyed using the conveyor belt to move items along just like in the supermarket, and it's very easy for children to operate manually. She literally spent hours doing this.
What really stands out about this toy is the attention to detail compared to other toy kitchens or shops. Not only is it much more robust than similar toys but it also has really thoughtfully designed extras - she loved using the beeping handset to scan items of shopping, along with swiping the toy bank card as well as using the cash register and playing with toy money.
I highly recommend buying the Melissa & Doug Fresh Mart Grocery Store Companion Set too as the set contains an impressive range of more than 70 shopping accessories that my daughter never tired of playing with. It's reduced from £34.99 to £23.99 for Black Friday too so you can save 31% off all the accessories your child could possibly need, including an apron, plenty of play food items to stock on the grocery shelves, and a bag for packing groceries.
