A Baker’s Dozen: 13 Mouth-Watering OTTO Pizza Instagram Pics

Posted on October 4, 2012 by elshepherd

Nothing makes us happier than knowing our customers love our pizza. While we love your praise when you’re in the shop, we also know that a picture’s worth a thousand words.

When our customers tweet or post pictures of our pizza (or our signature sodas and salads), we know they don’t just love it, they want others to love it too.

Here are 13 of our favorite OTTO shares on Instagram. Try not to drool on the keyboard, please.

1. From italianinboston:

2. From stretchandmayo:

3. From adewomol:

4. From constantlyconstance:

5. From just_me__just_em:

6. From shnrl:

7. From truestorycory:

8. From craigalansmalls:

9. From dibbee:

10. From bostontweet:

11. From mschafer87:

12. Also from from mschafer87:

13. And once again, mschafer87 (you really love us, don’t you?):

OTTO Pizza Serves up 2,200 Free Slices at New BU Location

Posted on October 2, 2012 by elshepherd

To mark the opening of the new Boston University location, OTTO Pizza gave away 2,200 slices of their award-winning pizza on Monday between 2pm and 6pm.

(And they say there’s no such thing as a free lunch.)

It was a smashing success any way you slice it. (Sorry, that was irresistible, like the pizza.)

Here are the stats:

Number of slices served: 2,200
Number of pizzas served: 367 (six slices per pie)
Slices per hour: 550
Slices per minute: 9 (one slice every 7 seconds)

OTTO employees worked tirelessly to ensure that everyone who descended upon the 888 Commonwealth Avenue location was given the opportunity to give OTTO a try.

Co-owner Anthony Allen said that the shop’s ovens were continuously to capacity during the four hour stretch to meet the demand.

“We’re really proud of our employees, who did a great job under extraordinary conditions yesterday, and we had a great time meeting all the people who came through the door,” Allen said. “It was an amazing experience.”

If you were at the event, feel free to check all the photos at our Facebook page. Be sure to tag yourself or your friends.

Don’t forget that in approximately 30 days the BU location will be serving beer & wine. (Don’t count on a free beer day, though.)

OTTO TO GO: Pizza Delivery Available in the Portland Area

Posted on September 26, 2012 by elshepherd

Why order delivery from the big chains, when OTTO Pizza will come to you?

Now, of course we love to see you. Your smiling face brightens our day. But we also know there are times when it’s hard to get out of the house, or you just don’t feel like getting out of your pajamas.

If you live in the Portland area, you can order any of our deliciously different pizzas by phone or fax. Whether you’re in the East End, the West End, downtown, the Arts District, Old Port, or Munjoy Hill, OTTO will ensure your pizza is delivered hot and fresh from our oven.

Delivery times may vary, depending on volume, but you can expect to have our custom-topped gourmet pies within 30-45 minutes. Some of the big chains can’t even do that.

It’s OTTO-Matic. For the people.

Beer and Wine to Flow at OTTO’s BU Location in Brookline

Posted on September 25, 2012 by elshepherd

OTTO Pizza is happy to report that customers at the BU location in Brookline will soon be able to wash down their pie with a glass of their favorite brew. Prefer wine? You’re in luck, too.

Brookline selectmen have approved a beer and wine license for our 888 Commonwealth Avenue location at Boston University.

With OTTO’s late hours, this should be welcome news to students looking to unwind with a late-night slice and a cold draft. OTTO is open until midnight on weeknights, and 1am on weekends.

While this news is certainly worthy of a toast, customers should expect the taps to start flowing in about 30 days. Stay tuned. We’ll be sure to get the word out.

In the meantime, we’d like to know which beers you’d like to see featured at OTTO. Are you a fan of craft beers, local brews, imports? While we have some great beers in mind, we would love to hear from you.

Take a moment to suggest a brew in the comments below, or hop over to our Facebook page and let us know.

Ready for Our Closeup: OTTO Pizza’s Gonna Be on TV!

Posted on September 20, 2012 by elshepherd

We’re gonna be on TV! The Phantom Gourmet is going to run a segment on OTTO Pizza this Saturday at 11 a.m. on myTV38.

Regular readers of the OTTO Blog may recall that a few months ago, a crew from the Phantom Gourmet stopped by to see first-hand how the OTTO PIzza magic happens.

For those of you who don’t live in the Boston area, the Phantom Gourmet is a legendary television show that consistently features the best the Boston food scene has to offer. It airs on myTV38 on Saturdays and Sundays at 10:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. You can catch the show in Maine now, too, on WPME-TV on Sunday at 11 a.m.

Earlier this summer, the Phantom Gourmet crew spent an afternoon at the OTTO Pizza shop in Coolidge Corner, talking with co-owners Anthony Allen and Mike Keon and shooting footage that will give their viewers an up-close and personal take on the backstory behind our award-winning pies.

Catch the Phantom Gourmet – and the segment about OTTO Pizza – on Saturday and Sunday morning at 11 a.m on myTV38.

They took a good look at one of our most popular slices: The Masher, which features mashed Maine potatoes, bacon and scallions, learned about a couple of other OTTO Pizza specialties, including the Pulled Pork & Mango and the Butternut Squash, Ricotta and Cranberry, and it was great hanging out with them, too.

We can’t wait to see what airs.

You can catch our segment this Saturday morning at 11 a.m.

Let Us Know What You Think Of The New OTTO Pizza Shop On Commonwealth Ave. in Boston

Posted on August 31, 2012 by elshepherd

The new OTTO Pizza shop at 888 Commonwealth Ave. in Boston hasn’t been open for a week yet, but we want to know what you think. If you’ve got a minute or two, leave a review on Yelp! We’d be forever thankful. Here’s the link: http://www.yelp.com/biz/otto-pizza-brookline-2

By now, you’ve probably heard that there’s a new OTTO Pizza shop in Boston, located at 888 Commonwealth Ave., near the center of the Boston University Campus.

The new shop’s gotten some great coverage from local media, including Boston Eater and the Brookline Patch.com, and the word of mouth is building, but now we want to know what you think of the new OTTO Pizza location.

If you’ve been to the new shop, and you’ve got a moment and Yelp! account, we’d be forever grateful if you would tell us what you thought of the new shop at 888 Comm Ave.

Here’s the link. Let us know how we’re doing. If there’s something that can be improved, let us know so we can fix it … and if there’s something that was truly awesome, we’d like to know that too, so we can hand out kudos to our staffers who are doing a great job.

Some shops would try and game the system, by either paying for good reviews or getting employees to write some, but at OTTO Pizza, that’s not how we roll. Everything you read on Yelp! about OTTO Pizza was written by actual customers. No shills.

Your input is what counts, and it’s you we want to hear from … so come on, tell us how we’re doing. We can take it.

OTTO Pizza Opens New Store on Commonwealth Ave. In the Heart of Boston University Campus

Posted on August 27, 2012 by elshepherd

A shot of the interior at the new OTTO Pizza shop, located at 888 Commonwealth Ave. (in the heart of the Boston University campus) looking in toward the kitchen.

If you follow us on Twitter, you may have already heard the news: OTTO Pizza just opened a new store — our fifth overall, and the third in the Boston metro market — on Commonwealth Ave, right in the heart of the Boston University campus.

@BostonTweet tweeted a great shot of the new space, but it’s something that you really should check out in person.

The new shop, a beautiful space at 888 Commonwealth Ave., emerged in a location that used to be occupied by The Upper Crust. Of course, it’s been completely reimagined by OTTO Pizza owners Mike Keon and Anthony Allen and the vibe now is thoroughly OTTO Pizza, through and through: clean lines, an open kitchen and an understated elegance create a comfortable and inviting atmosphere where you can either linger in casual conversation with a few friends over a whole pie or two, or grab some slices to go quickstyle if you’re in a hurry.

The new OTTO PIzza shop at 888 Commonwealth Ave. seats about 50 people and features the full range of pizzas that are available at each of the other OTTO Pizza locations, including our signature pie, The Masher (Mashed Potato, Bacon and Scallion), recently named by the Food Network Magazine as one of the Fifty Best Pizzas in the United States. We also feature a great selection of vegetarian pies for our friends who don’t eat meat and we’ll have at least eight different varieties available by the slice at any one time, with at least three vegetarian offerings among those eight.

An OTTO Pizza patron enjoys a slice at our newest location at 888 Commonwealth Ave. in Boston.

And if you’re so inclined, you can also enjoy a pint of your favorite beer to go with your slice – we’ve got seven craft beers on tap at 888 Comm Ave. — or select a glass of wine from our carefully selected wine list.

UPDATE: As our beer & wine license is still pending, you can’t enjoy a pint or a glass of wine … yet. As soon as we’ve gotten the licenses, we’ll open the taps and pop the cork. It shouldn’t be too much longer. Stay tuned.

The best part is, the new OTTO Pizza at 888 Comm Ave. is open now! We rolled out a “soft” opening on Saturday, Aug. 25, after making sure that the i’s were dotted and the t’s were crossed on all the necessary permits. With the proper paperwork in hand, we opened the doors at 11:30 a.m., and word of mouth has been building a steadily growing clientele since then.

If you want to check out the new shop for yourself, you’ll find it open from 11:30 a.m. to midnight from Sunday through Thursday each week, and from 11:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Or you can call ahead by dialing (617) 232-0447.

And while we don’t offer delivery from the new, 888 Commonwealth Ave. location yet, take heart! We’re working on it, and we hope to have delivery service up and running there soon. We’ll put the word out here as soon as delivery is available, so stay tuned to the OTTO blog, or follow us on Twitter (@otto_pizza) for the latest updates on all things OTTO.

Peace … out.

OTTO Pizza to be Featured on Boston’s Wicked Popular Phantom Gourmet Show

Posted on July 13, 2012 by elshepherd

Phantom Gourmet segment producer Deb Hurley and videographer Greg Dole shot a piece recently at OTTO Pizza’s Coolidge Corner shop in Brookline, Mass.

If you live in the Boston area, you are undoubtedly familiar with an enormously popular television show called the Phantom Gourmet. If you don’t live in the Boston area, you might want to take a look at it anyway because the Phantom Gourmet consistently highlights the best in Food & Fun in Boston and beyond … including forays into Vacationland to shine their spotlight on some of Maine’s best offerings.

And yesterday, the Phantom Gourmet crew brought their cameras to our OTTO PIzza Coolidge Corner shop to get the story from that angle and show their viewers exactly how the magic happens.

Segment producer Deb Hurley and videographer Greg Dole spent four or five hours at OTTO Pizza, interviewing owners Anthony Allen and Mike Keon, getting a behind-the-scenes take on our specialty pies and shooting footage that will give their viewers a first-hand look at what inspires such fanatical loyalty among our OTTO Pizza customers.

Of course, the inimitable Masher — featuring mashed Maine potatoes, bacon and scallions — was on the menu, but so were several other OTTO Pizza specialties, including the Pulled Pork & Mango, the Butternut Squash, Ricotta and Cranberry (a very popular item with our vegetarian friends) and the often imitated but never duplicated Margherita, which features fresh Roma tomatoes and pungent basil, painstakingly prepared by OTTO Pizza’s kitchen artisans in a delicate chiffonade.

The Phantom Gourmet airs in the Boston media market on myTV38 on Saturday and Sunday 10:30 a.m. and 11 a.m., respectively. The show is also a feature on the WBZ4 Evening News. The Phantom Gourmet airs on CW28 in Providence Saturday at 10 a.m. and WPME-TV, the CW, in Maine, on Sundays at 11a.m.

Phantom Gourmet is live on 96.9FM Boston Talks Saturday from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The OTTO Pizza segment is expected to air sometime in mid-August.

OTTO Pizza’s Deering Little League Girls Softball Team Closes Out Season

Posted on June 15, 2012 by elshepherd

OTTO Pizza coach Brian Carleton serves up some pizza to the members of the Deering Little League OTTO Pizza Girls AA Softball Team as they celebrate the close of their successful season with some pizza at OTTO Pizza’s Munjoy Hill location last night.

This year, OTTO Pizza sponsored a girls softball team in the AA Division of Portland’s Deering Little League. The girls, all seven and eight years old, wrapped up their season last night with a game at the Hall School field, whereupon the entire team adjourned to OTTO Pizza’s East End location on Munjoy Hill for a celebratory pizza party.

In addition to the pizzas, the girls enjoyed a special cake commemorating their season and tore into two packs of Topps 2012 baseball cards, supplied by Assistant Coach Danny Terroni.

It was a great year, and the best part of it was watching all of the girls improve as players as the season progressed. It was a real treat to watch them learn how to play the game and then put those skills to use on the diamond in the games each week.

The members of OTTO Pizza’s Deering Little League AA Girls Softball team gather for a team photo at the beginning of the season.

Coach Brian Carleton did a great job teaching the girls how to hit, how to field and how to make accurate throws, and every game was well-attended by the players’ parents, friends and family.

“We had a great year because we had great kids and all the parents were involved, too,” Coach Brian said. “That makes a big, big difference.”

We’re proud of the girls, not just those who played on the OTTO Pizza team, but of all of ’em who played in the league this year. It was an honor to be able to be a part of it all and we’re looking forward to being involved again next year.

A member of the OTTO Pizza AA Girls Softball Team in Portland’s Deering Little League drives a solid hit up the middle as her teammates look on.

Tony Hawk Twitter Hunt Winner Claims the Prize at OTTO Pizza in Portland, Maine

Posted on April 15, 2012 by elshepherd

If you’re into skateboarding, or even if you’re not, you’ve probably heard of Tony Hawk, who is without question the most popular skateboarder in the world.

Craid Candage found the Tony Hawk Twitter Hunt box that had been stashed at OTTO Pizza in Portland, Maine.

Every year, Tony Hawk stashes a bunch of boxes, filled with swag — skateboard gear from his company, Birdhouse Skateboards, autographed items, and other cool stuff — at various locations around the country. You may have read about it in USA Today or on ESPN. This year, he hid 45 boxes in cities throughout the country and a handful in various other English-speaking countries throughout the world.

More specifically, he stashed one at OTTO Pizza‘s shop on Munjoy Hill in Portland, Maine.

And about five minutes after the shop opened this morning, Craig Candage, of Portland, Maine, walked in and asked for the “Birdhouse Special.”

He got it: a big ol’ box full of swag, courtesy of Tony Hawk and his skateboard company, Birdhouse Skateboards.

So, what was in the box? All sorts of cool stuff: some T-shirts and other apparel gear, some skate gear … too much to describe, really.

Craig Candage, who found the Tony Hawk Twitter Hunt box that had been stashed in Portland, Maine, as part of the 2012 event, displays the load of swag that had been packed into the prize box.

Check out the photo to get a sense of what the winner walked off with.

You can see a video of Craig unpacking his box here.

And if you want to see if you can find one of these wicked cool boxes next year, make sure you follow @tonyhawk on Twitter so you can track the clues.

Good luck.

OTTO blog

Specialty Pizza born in Portland, Maine

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