 An Italian food comedy Tony, an Italian restaurateur who has tried for years to succeed in New York, has just closed his latest restaurant and gone completely bankrupt in the process. Pennyless and homeless, he receives the unexpected visit of his folks from Italy, Ubaldina and Giuseppe, two humble farmers in their late sixties. They bring all their Italian customs and traditions with them - reminding their son of his real roots, his real identity. Their coming together for the first time in New York sets in motion an unexpected chain of events, which result in the restaurant re-opening to huge success. SYNOPSIS Tony is the hip and good-looking owner of a small, ultra stylish New York restaurant, with a fancy Thai-French menu, snazzy young waiters... and no customers. The place is going out of business: the purveyors have stopped delivering food, the phones have just been disconnected, the bank has stopped credit. To top it all off, Tony has just been evicted from where he was staying, and he s forced to move his apartment furniture into the restaurant, which finally closes and becomes a messy storage area, and a place for Tony to sleep until he can figure out his next move. It couldn t get worse than this, but somehow it does: Tony receives a telegram from Italy, stating the imminent arrival of his parents, Ubaldina and Giuseppe. This seems like a catastrophe in his present situation; but you can t forget your family when you re from a little village in the Italian countryside. You leave with a big dream, like Tony did 20 years before, and the whole village follows you in thought, in hope. With his "American Dream" turning into a nightmare, Tony had completely forgotten to call his mother, forgot he had said he would be going home for a family reunion. Ubaldina called and called, found his numbers disconnected, got worried - with an intensity only Italian mothers are capable of - and in the middle of the big family reunion she yanked Giuseppe from the table, packed their bags and - for the first time in their lives - decided to get on an airplane, to go and see what happened to their beloved "Tonino". Thus, the two most unlikely people to show up at that point (they had never gone further than a few miles from their ancestral village) come knocking at his closed restaurant door. Tony has an anxiety attack: he had kept the bad news from them, not just about his failing business, but also about his failed marriage to Brooke, the mother of their 11-year-old grandson Daniel... Finding their son bankrupt, homeless and separated comes as a shock to Ubaldina and Giuseppe, but they do their best not to show it: they have come to help, crying about their son s problems wouldn t be much help to anyone. Unfortunately, from Tony s point of view they have become a problem also: where are they going to stay? How are they going to get around? Not speaking the language seems like an unsurmountable obstacle to Tony, an uprooted man who studied hard to learn English perfectly and blend in with the Americans. In his current predicament, how can he drag them along as a ball and chain around his ankle? But many surprises lie in store for Tony, when his parents, deeply rooted in their Italian customs and traditions, begin to help him in ways Tony could never imagine. They prove invaluable to Brooke, who initially takes them in only for the first night, but then asks them to stay indefinitely: Ubaldina cleans the entire house, does all the laundry and cooks three meals in the span of the first 12 hours, giving the responsibility-laden Brooke the first relief she s had in years; Giuseppe takes Daniel under his wings, taking him hunting and fishing, teaching him Italian, giving him all the time and attention his own father never seems to have for him; Ubaldina and Giuseppe "fix-up" the restaurant, redecorating it with Tony s apartment furniture to make it feel more like a "home" for their son. Ubaldina starts preparing delicious meals in the restaurant kitchen, gathering and nourishing the whole family (like every good Italian mother, during hard times the first thing they do is feed you) unwittingly setting the stage for an amazing chain of events, which results in the restaurant re-opening to huge success as an Italian Trattoria, with The New York Times dubbing it "the best regional Italian food in Manhattan: DA MAMMA"