Keith McNally
Eat This New York is the story of two best friends' struggle to open a restaurant in the food capital of the world. As Billy Phelps and John McCormick suffer through financial crisis, the loss of their chef, and a crumbling relationship, the filmmakers turn the camera on New York City's legendary restaurateurs who prove that dreams can come true. Billy and John's gamble to open a restaurant together takes shape on Division Street, a unique block in Brooklyn that separates the Satmar Jewish community of Williamsburg from the Latino neighborhood of the South Side. During the course of a year, they convert a former check-cashing shop located under the elevated train tracks of the J/M/Z subway lines into a retro speakeasy. But before the restaurant is fully built they come close to bankruptcy and almost call it quits on their friendship.
East Berliner Dieter was working at a very low-level factory job when East and West Germany were unified. He has a very ill child to take care of who requires expensive and special treatments that are not covered by the state medical system. When he loses his job in the inevitable downsizing, he is approached by a sinister rich man to perform various off-the-books services for him, including spying on the rich man's wife. Reluctantly, he accepts the role of "friend" to this untrustworthy fellow. His child is becoming steadily worse, so when the requests of his "friend" include violent and unlawful actions, he does not feel able to refuse him outright.
In this black and white independent melodrama, Joe Belinsky (Eric Mitchell) doesn't know how to cope with his wife's pregnancy and his loss of an insurance agency job, and feels adrift. As a consequence of that, he takes a job working the counter of a low-cost, somewhat hip eatery, and meets a French girl with whom he has a brief affair. Though the affair ends, it has created an obsession in him - first with the French girl, and later with slim young women in general. All of them reject him, and he leaves his waiting job to prowl around for these inaccessible beauties. Meanwhile, his wife is having their baby.
