BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT:

In recent months, when Writers Guild of America members line up outside a Burbank business, it hasn’t been to gush about the services. Bob’s Big Boy on Riverside Drive is the exception.

About a week after the writers strike began, the ’50s-style burger joint has offered free meals for guild members who show their cards when the check comes. But the restaurant isn’t the one footing the bill.

Comedian and host of “The Price is Right” Drew Carey has been picking up the tab of any and every writer that comes through the restaurant’s double doors, Bob’s Big Boy Manager Mary Cummings said.

This has been making the Burbank landmark, which is just blocks away from NBC Studios, a hot spot for writers picking up lunch after leaving the picket line for the day.

Ted Lang, a member of the writers guild since the ’70s, has lunch at Bob’s Big Boy, care of Carey, about three times a week with his wife, Angel Tompkins, a Screen Actors Guild member since 1966.

“She loves this,” Lang said, winding his way toward the back of the restaurant, waving to familiar waitresses as he approaches his wife.

“She’s the one who drags me here. She picks me up at the picket line and takes me to Bob’s.”

About 20 to 40 writers guild members a day eat at the restaurant, Cummings said. Despite their struggle on the streets, the guild members have been like any other customers, Cummings said.

“Nobody really says anything,” she said.

“They just come in, eat their meals and go back to their strike.”

Although most eat hamburgers and fries, union members are not limited in their menu options and can order anything they want, she said.

With the guild banning writers from working during the strike and the 8 a.m. to noon pickets five days a week for the last few months, a free lunch has started to sound better by the day, said Elizabeth Devine, a writer for “CSI: Miami.”

“I think as the strike has gone on we’re more apt to take advantage of these sort of things,” Devine said.

Her eating companion and “strike buddy,” freelance writer Beverly Hunter, had the opportunity to thank Carey in person when she ate at Bob’s Big Boy last week and spotted him in one of the booths.

“I think it’s a wonderful and generous thing he is doing,” Hunter said.

Although Carey has not officially announced he is the benefactor of burger-eating writers, it’s well known on the picket lines, she said.

“It’s nice to feel the support,” Devine said.

“It’s nice to get the support and you can get it here. . . . Plus, it’s good food. Who doesn’t like Bob’s?”