There's nothing more glamorous than running a restaurant – but there's also nothing more difficult. For restaurateurs trying to earn their piece of the pie, the New York food scene is a ruthless, cutthroat jungle where the stakes are high, the margins are razor thin, and success is hard to come by. In a new primetime docu-series, Consumed: The Real Restaurant Business, CNBC takes viewers behind–the-scenes of five very different restaurants in the ultra-competitive New York food scene, chronicling their every struggle and occasional triumph.

The 8 one-hour episodes will follow five businesses at a crossroads, fighting for their piece of a multi-billion dollar industry: famed NYC hotspot and budding empire The Meatball Shop; Melba's, a Harlem comfort food restaurant and neighborhood joint with national ambitions; Ann & Tony's, a multi-generational restaurant in the Bronx that's struggling to fill seats ─ and preserve its family legacy; Vermilion, an upscale restaurant hoping to win over the critical NY food press with an expensive re-launch; and Seamore's, a bold, but risky new seafood restaurant launching this summer.