At Boston Bay Pizza, diners can devour loaded pizzas, grinders, and sandwiches while cozied up on leather chairs in front of a fireplace framed in modern tiling or while relaxing out on the neatly landscaped patio. But it's not all about looks: the shop's cheerful shade of red conceals “green” elements built in to conserve energy and water.

If diners don't want to create their own pizza from toppings such as sun-dried tomatoes and Genoa salami, they can pick from specialties such as a four-cheese pesto pie and a N.Y. deli pizza adorned with Italian-style deli meats. For further flexibility, the chefs can also make all of their paninis as wraps, all of their wraps as paninis, and all of their calzones as origami cranes. The surfeit of Italian eats is augmented by orders of buffalo wings, quesadillas, and salads.