Shoppers drop in

For Linda Castelblanco of Newport Coast, Friday was her lucky day.

Having queued up early for the grand opening of the new Bloomingdale’s store at South Coast Plaza, Castelblanco was among the first 100 in line and received a Little Brown Bag containing breakfast of fruit, yogurt, a muffin — and a $1,000 Bloomingdale’s gift card.

“Oh my God, do I have the golden ticket?” she said, borrowing a line from the children’s classic, “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” Castelblanco had already spied a purse she wanted, so the gift card was on its way to being spent.

In a scene South Coast Plaza magnate Henry Segerstrom described as “the Big Apple meets the Big Orange,” Bloomingdale’s opened its 39th department store, its largest in Southern California.

Carol Nulty of Newport Beach was checking out the girls’ department on the first floor and said she liked the South Coast Plaza location because the store was larger and offered more of a variety.

Her fifth-grade daughter is at that in-between age for clothes, Nulty said, but she liked what she saw, felt the prices were reasonable and added that she would be bringing her daughter back to shop.

With a family vacation to the Bahamas coming up in a month, Nulty’s next stop was the bathing suit section, because as she put it, “It’s got to be done.”

Corona del Mar resident Richard May was shopping for a suit — he likes Ermenegildo Zegna and Hugo Boss — in the second floor men’s department, and was enjoying himself despite the fact that he was the 101st person in line and missed out on the breakfast.

For May though, the highlight of his visit was finally getting to meet Henry Segerstrom.

May remembers driving down that same road behind the new store — the dirt road, as he recalled — 45 years ago and seeing the bean fields that Segerstrom owned.

Marie Hover of Costa Mesa was “just looking” in the women’s department on level three but thought the store looked fabulous and was enjoying the free samples and goodies being handed out to customers.

Rib Hillis, modeling lime green board shorts — and nothing else — was wandering around offering samples of Clinique’s new self-tanning sun block.

As East met West at Friday’s grand opening, Bloomingdale’s had almost everything covered.