Driving up to Bend’s new Costco at the corner of U.S. Highway 20 and Robal Lane, the usual questions begin to kick in.

Will there be enough parking?

Are my reflexes feeling sharp today?

What’s on the sample menu?

“I don’t care about the size of the new store. It’s the parking. The parking was the issue,” Justin Garrison said Saturday morning as he walked around the membership warehouse store for his regularly scheduled Saturday shopping trip.

But Costco’s reputation for being one of Bend’s most notoriously chaotic shopping experiences may all be in the past, because two hours after the new warehouse’s opening at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning, enough empty parking spaces were left to accommodate the throng of excited shoppers.

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The new Costco store, replacing the one in east Bend built more than 30 years ago, has been hotly anticipated in Central Oregon since it was announced in 2019. A 2022 squabble over additional parking spaces for the store caused Costco Wholesale Corp. to threaten to pull out of the project, but the city of Bend officially approved the plans in June 2023.

Construction began earlier this year on the 185,000-square-foot building.

Inside the store Saturday, people walked around with shopping carts piled high with new products. Diligent staff patrolled the wider and more spacious aisles, and sample carts were continuously bombarded by eager taste testers. Allie Mansfield handed out samples from Costco’s stock of a new nonalcoholic beer from Deschutes Brewery, noting the general atmosphere of excitement among the shoppers.

“People are definitely stoked, and as the afternoon has gone on it’s just gotten crazier. It’s been fun to watch,” Mansfield said.

Among those most excited were Tia Rawe, of Bend, and her neighbor Karen Sours, who had been waiting eagerly for the new store to open after road construction delays pushed the opening from August to October.

Rawe and Sours came especially for the opening day festivities and were making the rounds at the sample carts trying to taste all the new products. Rawe was particularly excited as she hefted a Costco-sized jar of ginger tea concentrate she had found.

“This is two to three teaspoons into hot or cold water. I would think this would be wonderful if you’re not feeling good or if it’s supercold out and you’ve got a scratchy throat … and the ribeye pieces were melt in your mouth!” Rawe said. The size of the new store wasn’t a meaningless perk for the women. The new store is 17.3% larger than the old Costco, which opened in 1993.

“It’s huge! It took me 10 minutes to get to the bathroom,” Sours said.

With the additional size, the new store will be increasing its staff to 508 people, 123 more than the number employed at the old Costco.

“The customer service is right on, really great customer service,” Rawe said.

Now that the new warehouse location is open at 62207 NW Costco Drive, the old location on U.S. Highway 20 near NE 27th Street is closed. Costco’s plan is to place the property up for sale. Costco now operates 14 warehouses across Oregon, 615 in the United States, and has 892 locations worldwide.