Fourth Prime Pizza Location Opening in West L.A.

Prime Pizza will deliver to a wider slice of Los Angeles than ever before with the addition of their upcoming West L.A. location on 12219 Santa Monica Blvd., set to open this Spring.

“We’re always looking for the best delivery zones in an area that gives us access to the customers in the areas that we want,” co-owner Zak Fishman told What Now Los Angeles. “We didn’t really want a true West Side West Side location where we were right on the water because half of [our] delivery zone would be in the Pacific Ocean—we wanted something a little bit inland that covered most of Santa Monica, gets us into Brentwood and gives us a wide, versatile zone.” 

Since opening their flagship location at 446 N Fairfax Ave in 2014, Prime Pizza has assuaged the area’s craving for New York-style pizza and curbed the hunger of Angelenos from Hollywood to West Pico Boulevard. Locations in Little Tokyo and Burbank have since cropped up, along with rave reviews from Eater, the Los Angeles Times, Thrillst and L.A. Weekly. 

Fishman attributes the lack of authentic Big Apple pizza in L.A. to “geographical and cultural reasons.” During a five-year stint living in New York, he fell hard for its characteristically crispy, symmetrically-foldable slices. Although he certainly knew how to run a top-notch restaurant—previously, Fishman managed L.A.’s award-winning Bludso Bar & Que, working alongside current Prime Pizza co-owner James Starr—he didn’t yet know his way around a pie. After tasting the gamut of city pizza, Fishman brought Brooklyn pizzaiolo Frank Pinello, founder of Best Pizza and resident pizza expert for Viceland and Munchies, back to the West Coast to teach him how to recreate the style of pizza he had grown to crave.

 “We had the tools to operate a restaurant, we knew how to make good food and we knew how to operate, we just need to be shown how to make pizza,” said Fishman. “Frank did that, he showed us his dough recipes and how to make pizza.”

Since their first location opened in 2014, Prime Pizza’s namesake offering has been “getting better and better.” Within the last few years, the pair have begun adding a sourdough starter to their commercial yeast for a distinct, naturally-leavened crust.

Their new location, the site of a former Pizza Hut, has the bones of a successful pizza joint—combined with Fishman and Starr’s collective know-how, expect a spike in West Side pizza deliveries come Spring.

“Because of the pandemic, we wanted something that focused on delivery and pick-up, not heavy dine in and sit down, and this location fit the bill,” said Fishman. “We’ve been extremely fortunate—pizza has been the number one segment of the food world that has performed the best out of any other food category. Across the board, pizzerias have been doing well and we’ve just been lucky to be part of that. It’s been really challenging operationally and on a personal and employee level, but financially on a business level we’ve done well and been able to keep our doors open and our employees paid and to pay the bills.”

Moreover, Fishman told What Now Los Angeles, the location will sell its own specialty pie, unique to the Los Angeles Prime Pizza fleet, and a site-specific salad.