Breaking Bad has brought Twisters a 10% profit boost

So many of Breaking Bad’s filming locations in Albuquerque, New Mexico have become iconic and none more so than Twisters, which played home to Gus Fring’s crystal meth front, Los Pollos Hermanos. Metro stopped by for breakfast.

It’s a somewhat incredulous taxi driver that drops me off at 4257 Isleta Blvd, we must have passed at least a dozen decaying, yellowish fast food outlets on the drive here but I’ve insisted on this one; entirely unremarkable and in a particularly dusty and barren part of town.

This remoteness is likely what made Twisters attractive as a believable front for Fring’s crystal meth business in the AMC drama, its blank, sandy façade suggesting it to be nothing but another spore in America’s fast food disease – nutritionally malignant but an innocent business all the same.

Breakfast at Twisters

It’s no coincidence that Los Pollos Hermanos’ arrival in Breaking Bad occurred at the same that the series is regarded to reach its peak, the clandestine nature of Fring’s chicken shop empire being an irresistible plot strand following the street corner thuggery of the show’s opening season.




So high is the interest in Twisters that between 30 and 40 fans visit each day, restaurant manager Jose La Rivera tells me at the counter, as I order up a breakfast platter of huevos rancheros.

‘People kept coming in and saying “You’re the new Gus! You’re the new Gus!” and I had no idea what they were talking about,’ he says. ‘But I’m as hooked as anyone now, it’s a really great show.’

A Los Pollos Hermanos sign in Twisters pays tribute to the show

The influx of fans (some arriving direct from the airport) has brought a 10% profit boost to Twisters, but the interior remains unchanged and almost exactly the same as it appears on screen, with locals scattered sparsely around the restaurant tucking into mortar rounds of burritos.

Sat in what’s become known as ‘Walt’s booth’ and jabbing feebly at the mound of potatoes, pinto beans, eggs, jack cheese and green chile in front of me (my weak British constitution struggles with the idea of spice for breakfast), Jose tells me that his job has become less burrito slinger and more professional photographer.

The view from Walter White’s booth

‘Everyone wants a photo in the booth’ he says, ‘competition for that seat is high around the start of each season, and ahead of five [airing in the summer] it’s gonna get pretty crazy. We’ve even had the cast come back down here.’

Breaking Bad’s effect on Albuquerque as a whole is actually fairly minimal (no matter how much I quiz the taxi driver on this subject on the ride back to the hotel he’s insistent on instead filling me in expansively on the city’s green chile harvest), but long after its fictional owner’s demise, Twisters remains a greasy but affectionate reminder of one of the great television shows.

The concluding part of Breaking Bad, Season 5 part 2, will be available on Netflix later this year.