SAN DIEGO -- A kitchen accident Thursday sparked a blaze that gutted a Marina-area restaurant-bar immortalized in the Hollywood blockbuster "Top Gun" two decades ago.

Flames leaped out of an open-pit cooking area at Kansas City Barbecue and set the interior of the small eatery ablaze about 2:20 p.m., according to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.

The cook on duty at the time tried in vain to put out the flames, then fled along with fellow employees and a small number of customers, SDFRD spokesman Maurice Luque said. There were no injuries, he said.

The West Market Street restaurant, which provided the setting for bar scenes in the 1986 Tom Cruise movie, quickly became engulfed in flames that leaped toward a nearby stretch of trolley tracks and sent heavy smoke billowing through downtown San Diego.

It took 45 firefighters about 20 minutes to extinguish the blaze, which destroyed the inside of the restaurant and its "priceless" collection of memorabilia from the military action film, Luque said.

The nearby stretch of rail and adjacent streets were shut down while crews battled the flames.

Investigators set the monetary losses at $250,000 to the structure and $150,000 to the restaurant's furnishings and supplies.