dec-2017

120 121 OTTO PIZZA WHAT A SLICE! ‘O tto’ (Oh-toe) in Italian is the num- ber 8.There are 8 slices in an Otto large pizza. Coincidence? Not. Truth be told,Otto Pizza’s founders, Mike Keon and AnthonyAllen, had a bunch of other names tabled for their company when they started it, but…“Most of themwere really bad,”Anthony admits.“Earth’s Crust was one; Acme was another. It was our graphic designer who noticed Otto on the list–he liked the pal- indrome and came up with our logo.Mike and I loved it, and away we went.” Branding can make or break a start-up, and Otto’s graphic designer had his priorities in place when creating the logo.He wanted it to look like there were 10 stores, even though there was only one tiny slice shop.“He nailed it,” says Allen,“we really looked established with that logo.We credit it with being partially responsible for our success.” It all started in 2000, in a Massachusetts mill town,where Allen was a commercial broker