dec-2017

124 125 one,was not readily accepted.Allen laughs,“I started giving a money back guarantee with it–if you don’t like it, trade it in for whatever you want.Now,“The Masher” is our fifth most popular pizza. Rich, buttery and delicious!” Sixmonths after opening Otto, the adjacent building became available.Allen says they picked it up to control the space more than anything.“We punched a hole through the wall and turned it into EnzoWine Bar–no cooking, but 15 seats and full of ambience.We installed a bar top Mike had salvaged from the iconic Rathskeller bar in Boston, put some tin ceiling panels on the wall, and that tiny wine bar became popular.You could sit down for a drink, and we’d fire a pie and slide it through the little cut in the wall.” Enzo opened in January 2010, and in May anoth- er space on Congress St., a mile away, came up.A nightclub was going out, so Allen and Keon decided to rent the location and open a larger, sit-down Otto. That opened in Dec. 2010, followed two months later by a leap of faith to Boston–Harvard Square –and another small Otto slice shop.Allen says, “Looking back, it was a lot of growth for the time, and we made some mistakes, but I don’t think we were reckless.Along with good real estate, you need good pizza, and have to stand behind the execution of your concept.We’ve been pretty successful with that.” Entrepreneurs who open multiple pizza shops are usually determined to work“on the biz”not “in the biz.”With a total of 12 shops on the go in Maine and Massachusetts,working 60 hours a week, in-house was not feasible for Allen and Keon.They wanted to OTTO PIZZA M a i n e s T e c h n o l o g y L e a d e r i n M a n a g e d S e r v i c e s In fo rmat i on Tec hno l og y C l oud Ho s t i n g D ata Pro tec t i on 24x7x365 Monitoring and Resolu�on Scheduled installa�on of tested, white-listed security patches Comprehensive asset tracking Support and resolu�on for all of your applica�ons An�-virus so�ware monitoring and detec�on All under a flat-rate cost structure with no hidden fees. Gain high-performance compu�ng at a fixed monthly price with a small up-front investment. With our Cloud services and remote connectivity, you are always using the latest so�ware versions. Connec�vity from anywhere. Secure encrypted environment Ability to migrate your exis�ng server Hosted Exchange, SharePoint, and the en�re Microsoft product line Complete So�ware as a Service offering Hos�ng of custom applica�ons Backups as often as every 15 minutes The ability to restore a backed-up server as a virtual server in less than 30 minutes The ability to restore individual files or en�re directories The ability to restore individual Exchange messages or en�re mailboxes Off-site replica�on of data using encrypted technologies Monthly restore verifica�on available Backup your cri�cal worksta�ons as well www. B i zCompas s . net 820 Ma i n S t . Westbrook, ME i nfo@b i zcompas s . net 800 . 921 . 1272 use their time to grow the business, so, they hired smart people and trained themwell to keep all the locations as original as possible. Otto serves a broad range of customers. Every year in Harvard Square there’s a whole new class of students, and the unique Otto experience has to be reintroduced. Some locations have heavy pedestri- an traffic; a captive audience.The Coolidge Corner shop in Brookline is across from a movie theater. Any Saturday, you’ll see five or six baby strollers out front, a couple of dogs tied up–it’s a fun, family experience. Catering is defined as any order of five pizzas or more. Boston has one Otto where catering accounts for 60 percent of sales. Some shops are designed for it, execute it well, and it’s their base business. Others don’t deal with catering or delivery. It’s more a function of what the space can handle in terms of production, rather than demand.All cooking takes place in-house, except for some prep work like sautéed mushrooms and mashed potatoes which are done at a larger unit in South Portland and delivered daily to the individual shops.The Massa-