On Monday, Dec. 19, you can grab yourself a slice of OTTO Pizza's award-winning pie for free at the 576 Congress Street, in Portland, Maine, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.

You may have heard the vicious, pernicious rumor — or as our Canadian friends to the north might put it, rumour — that Monday, Dec. 19 has been designated as a so-called “Free Slice Day” at OTTO Pizza.

Well, it’s true. All of it. Here’s the deal …

Monday, Dec. 19, is, in fact, Free Slice Day at OTTO Pizza’s shop at 576 Congress Street in Portland, Maine’s Arts District. The store will open at its regular time, 11 a.m., and close at about 1:30 p.m. so the employees can prepare themselves for the mayhem to come.

At 2 p.m., the doors will be thrown open once again, whereupon Free Slice Day will be in full effect.

How does it work? Simple …

From 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., anyone who stops in can pick up one free slice of OTTO Pizza’s award-winninng pizza, any variety, on the house. One to a customer, please — we’d like everyone who wants one to get one. OTTO employees who aren’t busily making more pie to keep the pizza flowing will be on hand and passing the hat to benefit local non-profit agencies.

There might even be a few of our new, wicked cool t-shirts available, hot off the press … so get there early.

A Buddhist monk enjoys a slice of OTTO Pizza at the 576 Congress Street shop in Portland, Maine's Arts District.

At 6 p.m., the store will close so OTTO Pizza employees can retire for the evening to enjoy the OTTO Pizza Christmas party, which promises to be a rager of epic proportion … but that’s another story, and by the way, whatever you might have heard about the last OTTO party on Aug. 21, when the segment about OTTO Pizza aired on the Cooking Channel’s “Pizza Out of the Box,” is patently false — you can check the police reports for yourself, if you like …

Anyway, by now you’re probably asking yourself, “Why? Why would they do it? Why would they give away so much of that awesome pizza?”

Well, let’s just call it OTTO Pizza’s way of saying, “Thank you,” to the people of Portland, Maine, for everything they’ve done for OTTO in the 18 months or so since the first shop opened at 576 Congress Street — home of the “Free Slice Day.”

See you there!