In the 1940s, the unnamed narrator of Breakfast at Tiffany's lived in a brownstone building on the Upper East Side of New York City. He remembers the apartment fondly as it was the first place where he hoped he could become "the writer [he] wanted to be" (3). During this time, he never thought about writing a story about one of the most fascinating figures in his life: a young woman named Holly Golightly. However, he was inspired to write her story after reuniting with another old friend, Joe Bell. Joe owned and operated a bar on the Upper East Side where the narrator and Holly spent many nights. Joe calls the narrator and, for the first time in years, the narrator wonders whether he might receive news "about Holly.”

The narrator goes to Joe's bar. As Joe mixes a cocktail, he shows the narrator a photograph taken by "a certain Mr. I.Y. Yunioshi" (5). Like the narrator, Yunioshi once lived in the same brownstone apartment building as Holly. When travelling through Africa, Yunioshi was shocked to see a wooden sculpture which is "the spit­image of Holly Golightly" (6). According to the story told to Joe by Yunioshi, "a party of three white persons" (7) appeared one day on horseback, a woman flanked by two exhausted men, and asked to stay and recover in the small village where the sculptor lived.