Five Years of OTTO: A Month-Long Celebration of Food, Music, and Community

5th-candleWhen OTTO first opened its doors at 576 Congress Street on June 18 of 2009, owners Anthony Allen and Mike Keon had no idea that their humble slice shop serving up their unique take on a culinary staple would evolve into a fast-growing business employing over 240 employees in 10 locations, in 7 cities, in 2 states.

To celebrate 5 great years of food, friends, family, and fun, we’ve got a month of shenanigans lined up, including, but not limited to the following:

Saturday, May 24: OTTO’s 5th Birthday Bash with Elliott BROOD at One Longfellow Square
Pizza, giveaways, beer, wine, and great music, at one of our favorite venues! Come join the party on Saturday. Providing the music will be the band that fueled many late nights at the original slice shop, Canada’s Elliott BROOD, the Juno Award-winning ‘death country’ band whose live shows are “known to be lively affairs” (Washington Post). Also performing: Sympathy & the Lion.
Tickets available at One Longfellow Square

Throughout the month of June: OTTO Throwback Specials
KR1_0768Over the past five years, we’ve changed our menu from time to time. Sometimes we had to make room for new pies by retiring others. This never came without the cries OTTO enthusiasts who bemoaned the loss of their favorite pie.

In June, we’re reviving several of these pies at all locations for a limited time. Keep your eye on our Facebook page or our Twitter account for dates and times.

Friday June 20 & Saturday June 21: The Harmed Brothers LIVE at OTTO (FREE!)
To cap off our birthday month, another OTTO fave from Oregon, The Harmed Brothers, will be doing a two-night residency at our 574 Congress Street dining room. Stay tuned for more info.

Celebrate OTTO’s 5th Birthday with Elliott Brood at One Longfellow Square

Join us for an unforgettable celebration of food, friends, music, and community

We don’t usually make a big stink about birthdays, but we’re coming up on our 5th, and it just seemed wrong to not throw a party.

While we have multiple events and surprises planned for the weeks leading up to our actual birthday (June 18) and beyond, this is the big one — a celebration of food, friends, music, and community at One Longfellow Square on Saturday, May 24.

Brood_1Some of you may have seen a little three-piece band from Toronto called Elliot Brood at OTTO’s Munjoy Hill location about 18 months ago. And if you were ever in our original slice shop back in the day, chances are you heard Elliott Brood blasting while we cranked out pies. You might even say they fueled a lot of what we have built over the past five years.

An absolute favorite of OTTO owners and staff, Juno Award-winning Elliott Brood is a powerful three-piece specializing in an artfully unique brand of alt-country guaranteed to move you — physically and emotionally.  Whether churning out urgent, boot-stomping sing-alongs or lyrically-rich soot-stained ballads, these guys are the real deal. You really don’t want to miss them.  We’re thrilled that they agreed to be part of our celebration.

Sharing the stage will be Sympathy & The Lion, an alt-folk duo out of Lancaster, PA.

There will be giveaways, prizes and other surprises.

In case you need additional incentive:

“Elliott Brood shows are known to be lively affairs.”Washington Post

“Elliott Brood knows how to get a crowd off its laurels.”SF Weekly

“Elliott Brood holds fast to the notion that a great story-song sounds even better played fast and rough, propelled by frenzied strumming and rattling percussion.”The Onion’s AV Club

Get your tickets now.  It’s gonna be a good time.

Who is Elliott Brood? And Why Should You Care?

Elliott Brood is on tour and playing a bunch of shows in the northeast before heading over to Europe.

Music is an important ingredient at OTTO Pizza – we listen to it all the time. We listen to music while we’re setting up shop in the morning; it’s playing during the day when we’re taking care of our customers, and we crank it up at night while we’re cleaning up the shop to do it all over again the next day.

Some of the folks who work at OTTO Pizza are musicians themselves, and there are a ton of local bands that we love as well, but every once in a while, a band comes along that really grabs us and maybe we go a little crazy.

Elliott Brood is such a band. These guys are amazing. But don’t take our word for it. Check ’em out for yourself.

And apparently, Elliott Brood is on tour right now, which is great. Anybody else really like Elliott Brood? Why don’t you drop us a line at ottopizza668@gmail.com?