My favourite toy of all time is on sale for Prime Day and I'm tempted to buy it for my future grandkids

I originally reviewed the Melissa & Doug Fresh Mart Grocery Store for a newspaper article on the best toy kitchens for kids a few years ago, and it remains 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 as this did. It was our saving grace during the Covid lockdowns, doubling as a place for me to lean while I drank a cuppa and she pottered around, playing independently. It's a toy she never tired of and, truth be told, she bitterly regrets that we passed it down to a younger family friend a while ago, even though at ten years old she has definitely outgrown it. She still talks about this toy often, all these years later, and we both remember it fondly. 

In one of the best toy deals I've seen this Prime Day, you can get the Melissa & Doug Fresh Mart Grocery Store for £153.39 at Amazon, which is the cheapest I've ever seen and a whopping 41% off the usual price. It's still full price over at Very. Is it madness to admit that I'm considering snapping this up and popping it away for the future grandchildren I one day hope to have?!

Melissa & Doug Fresh Mart Grocery Store - £259.99 | £153.39 at Amazon Save 41%
This fabulous toy wooden grocery store kept children of all different ages occupied for far longer than any other play kitchen, toy shop, or similar item we've ever reviewed. Amazon has dropped the price by more than £100 for Prime Day, slicing 41% off the usual price.

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As a parenting journalist I've been writing and reviewing toys for over a decade. I love Melissa & Doug toys because they spark children's imaginations and encourage creative roleplay whilst also still being robust and durable. I have featured Melissa & Doug toys in many of our toy roundups over the years, so you can imagine my delight when I spotted this Prime Day toy deal at Amazon.

As a shopping editor and mum of three, I'm choosy about the toys I suggest and only recommend items that hold my children's attention - which not all toys do. (As the mother of two boys and a girl, toys have to withstand a lot of action in my house.) A well-crafted free-standing wooden grocery store, it's impressively robust and can withstand even the most high-energy play dates. Friends who came to visit were drawn to playing with the Melissa & Doug Fresh Mart Grocery Store and invariably had be dragged away from it at home time. It's an excellent toy for several children to play with together, with lots of space for more than one child to roleplay being a customer while another plays the shopkeeper, but my daughter also loved this for hours of quiet, independent play. 

And if you're a parent who admits to hating playing with their child, this is one of those toys that fosters the kind of imaginative play that you just can't help but want to join in with.

When we reviewed this wooden grocery store, I found that my daughter particularly enjoyed using the conveyor belt to move items along just like she had seen the cashier do 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 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 £20.49 for Amazon Prime Day, saving you 41% 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.