Caffeinated Combat

Sometimes People Banging Away on Laptops at Cafes Really Are Screenwriters

Working on Facebook or the next <i>Social Network</i>?
Working on Facebook or the next Social Network? Photo: Daquella Manera via Flickr

Or so we learn in the case of Atwater Village’s ten-year-old Kaldi Coffee and Tea, which gets a full exploration in the L.A. Times today. So while your neighborhood coffee shop is no doubt stocked with people who look as though they’re working on the next great screenplay (but are really just futzing around on the Facebook), this tiny place that roasts its own hosts an animator from South Park, the director of Sundance-screened The Pact, Joyride scribe Clay Tarver, and Colin Farrell in his PJs. Of course, the cafe doesn’t only taste success. A hive of hopeful talent, Kaldi sees plenty of broken Hollywood dreams too, with one manager describing the despair, “After a while, you just see them sort of losing hope…And then, just like that, we don’t see them anymore.” [LAT]

Sometimes People Banging Away on Laptops at Cafes Really Are