Customers make their way through the crowd with microwaves during the grand opening of Curacao home electronics deparment store at Meadows Mall, Saturday, Oct. 1, 2016. As Part of the grand opening, Curacao offered the first 100 customers a Sunbeam microwave for $12.
Saturday, Oct. 1, 2016 | 9:29 p.m.
Music blared, hands clapped and families from the Las Vegas Valley, Mexico and the West waited for as long as four hours this morning for the grand opening of Nevada's first Curaçao store, at Meadows Mall.
Standing near the front of the line just minutes before the Latin America-themed electronics, appliance and clothing store opened, Las Vegas resident Mariana Lopez rested her hands on a stroller, where her 16-month-old twin sons Roberto and Ricardo gazed curiously at an LED screen showing an underwater scene.
"We've been waiting since just after 5 o'clock this morning," Lopez, 27, said in her native Spanish. "We weren't going to miss this."
Behind Lopez, Los Angeles residents Vicente de Jesus and wife Paula waited with their 8-year-old daughter Leticia hoping to take advantage of the store's opening day sales.
The visiting trio said they lived close to a Curaçao store in their home city, but they choose to wait in long lines during their Las Vegas vacation for a shot at "fresh deals."
"There are always more bargains when the store first opens,” said Vicente de Jesus, 34.
Curaçao Las Vegas manager Richard Casillas estimated that as many as 10,000 shoppers would wait in line during the morning and afternoon. More than 8,000 had passed through the store doors as of about 4 p.m., and an additional couple of hundred were still waiting in line.
Casillas called the Las Vegas Curacao opening "long overdue" and said the chain plans to continue expanding throughout the Silver State and West. The Las Vegas location employs 150 people, he said.
Inside the store, the majority-Hispanic customers carted and wheeled mega-appliances, such as washing machines, television screens and stereo systems, to their cars while younger shoppers jumped on display mattresses and tossed faux pillows at one another.
Tijuana, Mexico, natives Juana Villa, 36, and sister Barbara, 32, packed their cart with smaller items, such as a blender and a Dell laptop computer, to fit in their suitcase for their trip home Monday.
The sisters, who are vacationing in Las Vegas for four days, learned about the store from a front-desk receptionist at the Wynn.
"I wish we had one of these back home," Juana Villa said in Spanish. "It's pretty upscale."
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