CHICO — Paradise resident Liz Dickinson was extremely excited when she heard six months ago that a new HomeGoods would be coming to the Chico Marketplace. Dickinson calls herself an “evangelist about HomeGoods,” as she has visited the store in cities across California as close as Napa and as far south as Indio in Riverside County. She said she visits other stores such as Hobby Lobby, Big Lots, and Target for items for her home, but more often travels to other cities to a HomeGoods.HomeGoods had its grand opening Thursday at the Chico mall as customers lined up along the side of the store and into the parking lot waiting to browse the mall’s newest retail store. The store is located at 1962 East 20th St. and has both delivery and pickup services available.

Store capacity was limited Thursday due to current COVID-19 guidelines in Butte County, however Dickinson said the 15-minute wait was much faster than what she had anticipated.

“I thought it’d be 30 minutes. When we did the COVID thing in Napa, I waited over a half hour,” Dickinson said. “I’m thrilled. I’m glad that we have a great choice of home items at a reasonable cost.”

While the store opened at 8 a.m. for its grand opening, regular store hours will be from 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sundays.

“HomeGoods delivers great value on an ever-changing selection of exciting top brands and home fashions from around the world, at prices generally 20%-60% below full-price retailers’ (including department, specialty, and major online retailers) regular prices, on comparable merchandise, every day,” the Chico Marketplace said in a press release, which HomeGoods also states on its website.

Dickinson, who is rebuilding her home in Paradise, was in search of a side table for her living room as well as some gift ideas and admitted she planned to get some gift cards for friends as well because of her love for the store.

For Debbie Yahn and her husband who moved to Chico at the beginning of January, they attended the grand opening Thursday in hopes of finding items for the new home they moved into Feb. 10. Yahn and her husband moved to Chico to be closer to their children and grandchildren and said that she has always loved TJ Maxx. She said the new HomeGoods was a lot of fun to look at, had a large variety and seemed like a larger version.

Yahn decided to focus on one room in her new home — the bedroom. She purchased a dresser, a comforter, and lamps among other items.

“I had a whole list, but there are so many beautiful things inside so I decided to focus on one room,” she said. “That’s what is fun about it. I like to look at a lot of different things so I was kind of overwhelmed because it’s so large and there’s so much to look at. I didn’t know where to go first.”

The Chico Marketplace also announced in the press release that Petco will be opening in May as well Burlington opening up next to HomeGoods in July.