Frank Lehmann (Christian Ulmen) is a bartender working in Kreuzberg, a borough of West Berlin in October 1989, in the final weeks before the fall of the Berlin Wall. As he is approaching his 30th birthday, his friends start teasing him by calling him "Herr Lehmann" ("Mr. Lehmann"). He has little interest in anything outside of SO 36, the eastern part of the borough of Kreuzberg. He has a brief relationship with Katrin (Katja Danowski [de]), a cook at a nearby bar. His best friend, Karl (Detlev Buck), slowly goes mad, and his parents show up for a visit, disrupting his laid-back lifestyle.