Marq Smith and Ed Candelaria have been in the world of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul for over 15 years.  Back in 2010, two years after the first season of Breaking Bad premiered, we finally started watching Vince Gilligan’s masterpiece by the insistence of our sister and nephew.  Although we knew the premise, we also knew that this show was filming in and around Albuquerque at the time, but we simply didn’t have the time to watch, or we just weren’t interested in watching it.  
To say we were blown away is an understatement, and binging the first two seasons and now watching season three (which was now showing on AMC), in its weekly format, we couldn’t believe it took us this long to see what a growing number of fans already knew; that this show was amazing, gritty, frantic, beautifully acted, at times funny, at times dark, and the cinematography unique in showing Albuquerque, which was the sixth character of the show, its deserts, its blue skies, its mountains, its safe and yes its dangerous side.  
We loved how the show didn’t pretend to know and make up town names, street names, in and around town.  You believed the characters lived here, and you were shown (mostly outside of the local ABQ Studios), real places that we as local residents frequent; that live here in the ABQ as locations for the viewers to see and wonder if that location was in fact real.  But we wanted to make sure that fans knew these locals were real, and that yes they were used in the show, and so that’s how it all began for us down the Breaking Bad road that has led us to opening the only physical  store in the world, to cater to fans from all over the world, that can only be in the city from which it began…Albuquerque, New Mexico.
During season three, both Marq and Ed, along with our sister and nephew who were the two who told us to watch the show, began what we called “The Unofficial Breaking Bad Fan Tour” in which we four would first watch the episodes, get as many locations as possible from each show, try and locate them on Map Quest or any other form of locations online, and go out on a long holiday weekend from early morning to early evening, and go from one part of the city to the other and take pictures with us in front of each location.  From those pictures, both Marq and Ed started a Facebook group entitled “The Unofficial Breaking Bad Fan Tour” to show fans of each of the four of us in front of each locale to show them that there was no studio involved, that there was not trickery in showing it was filmed in Albuquerque, and not in Los Angeles etc. We wanted the fans to know that this show was in fact filmed here, that the places they filmed (car wash, Walter’s home, Los Pollos, first cook, Mikes death scene) were all in and around town.  We would publish the pictures and fans could now see for themselves how it was filmed and where it was filmed.
 
Although at the time there was not a lot of people coming here to Albuquerque as they do now to go look for locations, it was so much fun and exciting to see our membership in our Facebook group grow, as back then fans were now wanting to come and experience it for themselves and do what we and some others were posting on social media.  As our memberships grew, so did our relationship with some of the crew and cast members of the show.  We got to know them, we got to talk to them, and we got to see them while they were filming.  It was a great time, and we started to share that with our members of the Facebook group.  We would do contests; we would do scavenger hunts among other things with gifts that the crew would give to us so that we can give to members of the group with something from the show that they loved.  When Breaking Bad ended its run, we had a finale party at our home for members to come and celebrate the show, the group page and friendships that we all had because of this show.  We had some local actors and some of the crew appear at our party, and both of us; Marq and Ed, thought this was it, we are moving on to other things and we left our Facebook group behind.
Of course that’s not what happened, as it was announced that Saul Goodman was now having a prequel to Breaking Bad.  Although we thought there was no way we could fulfill what we did with our group for Breaking Bad, we said let’s do another group….this time for the new series.  So began “The Better Caul Saul Three Strikes Group” on Facebook.  With now even more members than our last Breaking Bad group, this group was now more intense in its affection for the show and for our group.  Both Marq and Ed, now weren’t just Administrators of a Facebook group, we also hosted each week at a local brewery for five of the six seasons of the show the premiere of each episode.  We had summer parties for our group members, some of which were now even being attended by cast and crew of the show.  We still did contests on our Facebook group, but we also did charity work for local nonprofit businesses, or for members of our group.  We thought if we can bring out the support of the fans for one thing, lets see if we can get them to help out some folks that we want to help.  
It is now 2018, and both of us are vacationing in Atlanta GA and attending a convention called Walker Stalker which is a Walking Dead convention at that time.  A friend of ours who lives in Atlanta also took us to a town called Sanoa, GA which was the filming location for Walking Dead.  We walked into the Walking Dead store located in Sanoa, and although we both talked and talked and talked before about opening a museum in Albuquerque, albeit maybe for just one weekend for the items we had started to collect from the shows, we were amazed that no one opened a Breaking Bad store in the city that Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul were filmed.  Needless to say, we loved the store in Sanoa, we thought it was a great idea and nothing more was said about it.
 
Flash forward to a little over a year later in October of 2019, and we were approached by the man who owned and operated the Breaking Bad RV Tour here in Albuquerque named Frank.  He had at the time a small store in Old Town ABQ that was designed to celebrate the many movies and television series filmed here in town.  But with the RV and the store, it became too much for him and his family to operate both, and he wanted to now just focus on just the tour, he asked us if we wanted to take over the rent for his store and start our own store.  Both of us looked at each other, and we thought we can finally do what no one has done and do a Breaking Bad store that would only carry anything and hopefully everything Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul and also El Camino which had just been released that year.  After a bit of lets do it, to no maybe not, to we have good jobs lets not risk it, we finally agreed to take over Franks shop and see if we were correct that fans and tourists of fans wanted something from these shows when they come here that they can purchase and take back home.
We opened our doors on January 2, 2020 and had a grand opening a couple of days later with both Steven Michael Quezada (Gomez) and Jeremiah Bitsui (Victor) came to celebrate with us and with fans.  We had a great week, in which usually during the month of January is pretty quiet for visitors coming to Albuquerque.  We thought we were doing great as news coverage was happening, we gone viral with our store and then before you know it, we got a call from Sony television asking if we both can do a telephone meeting with them and lawyers in a few days.  Yes we thought we will be shutting our doors just days after we opened, but we went ahead with the meeting and it all went well.  Everyone at Sony have been tremendously helpful to us, they said at the time that Vince Gilligan (creator of the shows) knows of us and is very touched that we are doing the store.  It was a nice relief for both of us, and our confidence was growing as the days and weeks went by, as we saw more customers, more interviews for the store and just the excitement of doing something we never thought possible just a year prior.
That all changed in March as we had to shut down do to the Covid epidemic that was happening throughout the world.  Tourism ceased to exist, everyone was shut in and both of us were wondering if we would ever open again.  During this time our landlord came to us and asked us if we wanted to move to an available store next to our existing store which would go from a 500 square foot store to a 1000 square foot store.  Being that we were shut down and not knowing if we would open up again or the world would open up again, we were wondering should we do it?  We decided on going for it, and thinking we can add more to that store that we couldn’t do at our existing store.  We can add more photo ops for fans, a better area with more room for some wardrobe we had in our collection.  It was a big risk, but we felt we can do it when and if we get through this pandemic.  After we got to open up again in the summer of 2020, the world was still shut down, but some Americans did venture out, did go across country to see the states, and they did come to our store.  It was great to finally open up again, and to see fans are still wanting to see anything when it comes to the shows.  
Both of us after a few months decided we needed a bigger place to have a store and now an actual museum.  We wanted the fans to not just come to shop, we wanted them to have an experience.  We decided to do another risk and move to another store front here in Old Town Albuquerque.  A much bigger store that can have one part store, one part museum where fans can now see more wardrobe, props, memorabilia, photo ops, and quite frankly feel like they are in the shows when they come into the store and definitely when they walk in the “Heisenberg Meth-seum” as we like to call it.  With more and more items arriving new to both the store and museum, you can come into the store today, and see something different if you come in a few months.  We like to have it change, revolve and evolve for fans and possible future fans who come into our store.  
During these past years of being at our new store, we have had meet n greets with actors from the shows, we have had a wedding, we have had a paint night, we have had just actors from the shows just come into the store to see what its all about.  We have had crew members come into the store and reminisce about their time on the shows, we have had fans and customers young and old come into the store and tell us about how both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul has changed their lives and how many times they have watched both.  It has become a dream job for both of us, and although it can be difficult at times and many working hours during and after business times, we still pinch ourselves knowing that it all began with us just sitting down after being told to watch this show that was filmed here in town, and loving what we saw on the screen.  It’s been a wonderful 15 year ride, and what’s better is now we can relive that excitement and experience with fans from all over the country and world, and we hope to see you if you come here to Albuquerque.  Thank you. 

Marq Smith & Ed Candelaria – co owners

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January 2020 And January 2025

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Today

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OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

—Percy Bysshe Shelley

Thank you to everyone who not only visits our website and online store….but to everyone from around the world who come to The Breaking Bad Store ABQ. We love meeting each and everyone of you; we love talking to you about how much you love the shows, the characters, the city and our store. It means so much to us. We hope you all come back and visit us again soon!! You ARE the ones who knock!!!!

The Crew At The Breaking Bad Store ABQ