AUBURN – They started gathering in the parking lot at 7 a.m. By midafternoon, the wait time for the cash register was in the ballpark of 40 minutes, but shoppers still walked out with smiles. Bags were stuffed with down coats, snappy T-shirts and jeans, everything in the store $8.98. Everything.

Steve & Barry’s opened Saturday with a bang.

The long-vacant end of the Auburn Mall, where Porteous used to be, bustled all day.

Mall Manager David Lee said more than 100 people had spent the week setting up the store.

The last two days, work stretched around the clock.

It normally takes 14 days to roll out all that merchandise, fold it, label it, get it on the right shelves. Steve & Berry’s did it in half that.

“I think they probably set a land speed record,” Lee said.

The new store’s doors open to big, wide aisles, floor-to-ceiling displays and everything from sneakers to bras.

Becky Kirouac of North Turner said when her father called to entice her to visit, she didn’t believe him about the grand opening prices. She found something for her sons, herself and her husband.

“I would have probably paid three times that anywhere else,” she said.

Some customers walked out, clearly turned off by the wait, but more stuck it out.

“It went pretty quick,” said John Bate of Lewiston, there with girlfriend Erin DeMars. “It looked like it was going to last a couple hours.”

The pair planned to hit the mall anyway and stumbled onto the sale. DeMars grinned while admitting everything in the bags was for them.

“You can’t pass up $9 for a nice pair of pants,” she said.

The Auburn store is the first Steve & Barry’s to open in northern New England.

Boasting lines from celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker, all merchandise is usually priced under $20.

Lee said he expected the $8.98 sale to run for the next week or so.

Just this month the mall has seen the new anchor, a new, large Super Shoes and Joker’s family entertainment center.

“(It’s) as busy as I recall it a few years back,” Lee said. “This is a return to the good old days as far as I’m concerned.”