Made between Bikeboy and Lonesome Cowboys, Nude Restaurant fits into Andy Warhol's “fourth period,” described by Peter Gidal (“Andy Warhol, Films and Paintings”) as “color films of commercial length.... All have excellent sound tracks if played in the right condition. Direction is usually in the form of an idea by Warhol; action is on the microscopic minute level of the first period as well as on the macroscopic large-movement level of the second and third period films. There are no scenarios.... Generally these films were ‘directed' and shot by Warhol.” So much for categorizing. In his book, “Stargazer,” Stephen Koch writes of the films of this phase as a period in which “something absolutely grotesque happened to Warhol's two finest gifts: his visual intelligence and his taste. It was simply this: Degradation.... Even one who prides himself on strong nerves must recoil from them.”
The waitress at the Nude Restaurant is the lanky, loquacious Viva. She spends the first portion of the film preparing for work in the john, where she is at her most philosophical. In the cafe proper (if such a term can be used), she is joined by Taylor Mead, Louis Waldron and others, all nude. Topics of discussion range from Viva's Catholic childhood to the efficacy of municipal laws, and Warhol's camera techniques--in-camera jump cuts, weavings, and, at one point, no camera--serve as the punctuation for the naked ramblings.