Forget about the networks, who are forced to rebroadcast late night programming and the writers, who are currently out of work. No, they’re not the real victims of the writers strike. Nor are the American people, who very soon will have to resort to reruns for entertainment, or the show runners who are caught in between the writers and the producers.

No, the real victims of the writers strike are the L.A. coffee shops whose clientèle have left them for the picket line.

Take the Office, a writers’ work space in Santa Monica. The normally hopping coffee shop has been empty since the strike. Screen writers are afraid to be even caught with a laptop during the strike; even working on a pilot occupies a “gray zone” during the work stoppage.

Office owner Aleks Horvat told the L.A. Times, “If the strike keeps up, I could lose my business … After all, I am a luxury, not a necessity.”

Studios, writers, we implore you. If nothing else, end this strike for the baristas in L.A. They need you, almost as much as you need their overpriced skim, no-foam mocha cap lattes.