Adobe farmhouses and irrigation ditches line Isleta Boulevard, and Twisters became Los Pollos Hermanos for Breaking Bad.
What South Valley looks like
Isleta Boulevard runs the length of South Valley on the west side of the Rio Grande, a two lane road lined with small commercial buildings, horse pens and open fields rather than strip malls. Houses sit back behind wire fences, with sheds and pole barns scattered across the lots. , a drive up burger and burrito stand, sits alone in its own parking lot partway down the boulevard.
The sits behind a wide gravel forecourt off Isleta Boulevard, a single storey adobe building with a flat parapet roof, a covered porch along one wing and deep set windows trimmed in white. A pair of beehive shaped horno ovens stand in the yard behind it, mud plaster domed over a low firing chamber with a wood plank door.
Drainage ditches cut straight lines across the valley between the fields, dirt banked channels with a footpath along one side. Cottonwoods lean over the water at the , dropping leaves onto the bank in autumn, with the Sandia and Manzano mountains low on the horizon beyond the trees.
sits on Arenal Road toward the south end of the valley, a campus of low flat roofed buildings behind athletic fields. Farther north, the village of has a brown and white pre 1937 Route 66 marker beside its welcome sign on Isleta Boulevard.
East toward the river, is flat open grassland, with rooftops from the neighborhood along the tree line at its edge. The Rail Runner train stops at a platform on Rio Bravo Boulevard, one track between a chain link fence and open ground.
Shot in South Valley
Twisters Burgers and Burritos on Isleta Boulevard played Los Pollos Hermanos, the fictional fried chicken chain at the center of the AMC series Breaking Bad. The same restaurant returned as Los Pollos Hermanos in the prequel series Better Call Saul. It also appears briefly in the film El Camino, A Breaking Bad Movie.
Breaking Bad, 2008 to 2013
Twisters Burgers and Burritos
Played Los Pollos Hermanos
The restaurant's dining room and drive up window both stand in for Los Pollos Hermanos, the fried chicken chain Gus Fring runs as a front. The same building plays the same fictional restaurant again in the prequel Better Call Saul and once more in the film El Camino, A Breaking Bad Movie.
What South Valley can double for
Corrales in Corrales, New Mexico
Corrales sits in the same Rio Grande bosque a few miles north, with acequia ditches, cottonwood stands and single storey adobe houses on large lots that read the same as South Valley's farmland. Horse pens and dirt lanes off the main road give it the same rural edge against a nearby city. Corrales' adobe houses are newer and better kept than South Valley's older stock, so a wide shot needs a lot with older outbuildings and a dirt lane to hold the match. Try searching adobe houses and horse pens now.
Mesilla in Mesilla, New Mexico
Mesilla's adobe buildings and dirt edged streets around its old plaza suit an earlier period than South Valley's own farmhouses, useful for a Spanish colonial or territorial era New Mexico setting. Mesilla's plaza and shopfronts sit closer together than South Valley's spread out farm lots, so a single building or courtyard holds the period better than a wide street view. Try searching adobe plaza territorial New Mexico now.
San Elizario in San Elizario, Texas
San Elizario's low adobe buildings along the old river road share South Valley's flat farmland setting and could stand in for a similar Rio Grande valley village farther downriver. The presidio chapel and plaza there are more built up than anything in South Valley, so this only holds for a farmhouse or a field edge kept out of frame of the historic core. Try searching Rio Grande valley adobe village now.
