Lemonade Stand Board Game Review

Kids games are becoming a dime-a-dozen situation in the board game space, which is both good and really, really bad. Poor productions, uninspired gameplay, and loads of ‘shovelware’ are ruining the kids board games space, requiring parents – some of them with little to no knowledge – to sift through piles of crap to find great games for their kids. My one goal in looking for kids games is that it fulfills one of two purposes: 1) it either teaches my kids solid board game concepts like deck building or worker placement; or 2) it has some educational value to it. Thankfully, I think Lemonade Stand fits into both of these categories, but especially the educational value one.

In Lemonade Stand, players will construct lemonade stands out of really cool puzzle pieces, which you can read about in our components overview and impressions article (LINK). Once the stands are built, players will need to balance their finances by making sure they are purchasing the right amount of product – both regular and fancy lemonade – that will correspond to the wants and needs of the game’s many customers. Buy too much lemonade and you will go broke; by too little, and you won’t turn a solid enough profit.

There isn’t much more to the game than that, but for a kids game there doesn’t need to be. It’s the educational value here that has me intrigued, teaching my kids the concepts of supply and demand and money management. Shoot, the game even includes $1 and $5 dollar bills! But it was fun to watch my youngest knowledge of money slowly grow with each passing game. In the first game, he was terrible and blew all his money. But as we played more and more, he began to connect the dots between purchasing what you need based on what customers wanted.

Sure, there is a bit of risk as you plan for customers you don’t get to see, and other players can snake customers out from under your nose, but that is additional features to make the game fun, not just educational.

I think Lemonade Stand is a perfect game for kids, and one that adults will tolerate to play. It’s not our favorite kids game we currently own, but none-the-less it will stay in our collection, which is saying something since we are culling kids games weekly at this point! If you want something that is equal parts education and fun, Lemonade Stand might be a good bet!