Scott Takeya had to chuckle.

The store manager for the new Office Max in Kapolei Commons had watched all weekend as thousands of shoppers turned out en mass for the grand openings of Target, Sports Authority, Petco and his own store.

"You see a lot of people carrying bags of stuff from Target or Petco that they probably could have gotten at Wal-Mart for the same price, and without the lines," he said. "But they have to get it here because it's new. They can go home and tell everybody that they got it at Target."

Not that Takeya was complaining, of course. While overall sales at the new Office Max were lighter than expected, the flow of customers was large enough that Takeya had to open registers and reposition his sales associates to accommodate the traffic.

"What you're seeing out here in Kapolei is genuine interest in these stores opening," he said. "We're the first Office Max Advantage on O'ahu, so some people are just curious to see what it looks like compared to the old Office Max."

In fact, shoppers seemed determined to make it to the big box openings at Kapolei Commons no matter what the inconvenience. On Saturday, rainy weather, a six-hour blackout in the Kapolei Parkway area and a traffic snarl caused by a small gas spill on Fort Weaver Road all threatened to derail the openings. Still, the mall remained filled throughout the day.

"This is definitely the most exciting opening I've been involved in," said Target store team leader Jon Radke, who has worked at five other Target launches. "This is definitely the most traffic I've seen."

Radke said business has been nonstop since the store's VIP opening last Tuesday.

"Usually a soft opening is just that, soft," he said. "But this is unbelievable. We've been able to send some pretty exciting reports to headquarters, and they're very pleased with our results."

If customer traffic remains high, the store may have to order more shopping carts, Radke said. Throughout the weekend, customers had to wait outside to get a cart from exiting shoppers. The store has 500 carts.

Radke said he anticipated huge crowds for the grand opening but, given the state of the economy, did not expect actual sales to follow suit. "I thought that might happen with the recession in place, but that hasn't been the case at all," he said.

Business was also booming at nearby Petco. Store manager Jerry Coble told The Advertiser on Saturday that the store's grand opening the day before was the largest ever for the chain.

Target and Petco were able to weather Saturday's blackout with backup generators. Sports Authority, which opened on Wednesday, used a generator to check out customers already in the store, but could not admit anyone else until power was restored around 3 p.m.

Store manager Jarrett Chang said he isn't sure if yesterday's overflow crowd would compensate for the loss of sales, but he considers the weekend a big success nonetheless.

"When we reopened, there was a crowd of people waiting outside," he said. "It was a pretty marginal loss."

Chang said business had been steady but not spectacular since the store's soft opening on Wednesday. That all changed this weekend.

"It helps that Target is right next door to us," he said. "The soft opening was a good way for us to get training in, but we're a lot busier now. Target brought a lot of attention to this mall."

Target's Salt Lake store also celebrated its grand opening with huge crowds this weekend.

Store team leader Denise Lint said her location has been "busy, busy, busy" since the doors first opened.

"Right now we're focused on the logistics of traffic and making sure everything is on track in the store and outside," she said.