1. The marble counter looks diner-esque, but the imported marble was the most expensive design element in the room.

2. Pitfire Pizza's communal tables are popular among convivial Angelenos. Designer Ralph Gentile created the acrylic light fixture that hangs above the table. The fixture glows orange at night.

It's not flashy, but the oven is the focal point of the room. “It really harks back to that whole idea of the hearth,” says designer Ralph Gentile of RGA Studios in Los Angeles, who created the design package for all three Pitfire locations. The oven's prominence “adds to the notion that the pizza is a handmade thing, prepared for you,” Gentile says.

Handmade pizza is the point of Pitfire. Business partners Paul Hibler and David Sanfield, who also own Deluxe Motion Picture Catering, opened the first Pitfire in 1998 in North Hollywood. The second opened in downtown Los Angeles in 2005.

Their goal in opening Pitfire was to offer high-quality pizza in a setting Hibler calls “convenient casual,” with reasonable price points and quick, but not hurried, service. Diners order at the counter, and food is then delivered to their tables.

4. Three custom-made paintings provide one of the few decorative touches.

3. The wood-burning pizza oven is visible from both the sidewalk and patio seating.

The design matches the food and service. Elements that Hibler calls “diner-esque” include the subway tile behind the oven, an abundance of booths and ample counter seating.

Pitfire departs from diner design, though, in the choice of materials. Nearly everything, from the marble countertop to the wood laminates to the Italian glass tile under the counter, is natural, “not fake,” Hibler says. Even the specials chalkboard is real slate.

5. Booth seating gives the restaurant a diner-like vibe and stresses the quick, but not hurried, service style.

Located in what formerly was a French restaurant, the Westwood Pitfire is the first built in a remodeled space. For that reason, the building cost was about $350,000, compared to $700,000 to $800,000 for a from-scratch location.

The location was not ideal, Hibler says. To start, the rectangular room only has one usable corner, and corners are prime space for desirable booths. Too, the space is “a little linear” for Hibler's taste.

And the buildout was not seamless. The designers took time to choose an orange hue, but after it went on the walls, “we didn't like it,” Hibler says. The substitute? The orange found in Hermes scarves, he says. The designers also used a solid wood for the facing at the ordering counter. “It got destroyed,” he says. The replacement is a “bulletproof” laminate made from French ash.

The Westwood location will gross about $1.7 million a year, due to its college-campus location. “In the right spot, it could do $2.5 million,” Hibler says, referring to areas with more business-lunch and evening-residential traffic. Expansion plans call for two more Pitfires this year, both in Los Angeles.

6. Pitfire Pizza's design is heavy on natural finishes: marble, brick, steel and stone.

But it can't be just a financial partner. “We want someone to bring more than money to the table,” Hibler says. “We would want them to protect the integrity of Pitfire.