OTTO — Restaurant in Portland

I'm only in town for a few weeks. And of course, I brought stretchy pants so that I could try out all the great food places. I've had plenty of lobster rolls and lots of seafood, and I'm also a big breakfast guy. But I did all the right things to put me in the right frame of mind so that I could have pizza. I went for a big walk around the huge cove, spent an hour at the YMCA pushing iron. And closed out the workout by spending 30 minutes in the sauna at 118 degrees. I reached out to my landlord and asked him where I should go for pizza. Otto's was the place. To be more precise, it's actually three places. They have a special events room, and then they have a takeout area, and then they have the main dining area. Each of these has their own entrance. Leave it to me, the out of towner, to go to the first two before I got to the right one. It's got a really good feel, and they're really lucky to have such a fantastic staff. I got a pepperoni pizza and I ask for extra pepperoni with extra pepperoni, and then with extra pepperoni. I don't stutter. The pizza needs to look like it's got so much pepperoni, that you can barely see the crust. 💥 it was superb. I only know one pizza joke. At least I only know one that's clean enough to put on a restaurant review. When she brought it out, I commented that they'd made a mistake by cutting it into eight pieces of pizza. I said it was my mistake, as I meant to ask them to cut it into 4 pieces so I wouldn't sound like such a glutton when I told people how much I'd eaten.

The crust on that pizza was absolutely perfect. Take a look at the pic, and just imagine how savory the first bite is. The cheese is manageable. You don't end up tugging, and pulling and trying to manage a stringy cheese mess. I'm gonna say it again.It was perfect. They've got a broad range of drinks and beers to choose from. I sneaked a peek at the other people there, and everyone looked really satiated with their meals. This is one place I'm gonna have...

I stopped in and sat at the bar and ordered a beer and that's where the problems began. The kid behind the bar who was definitely high or afflicted by some mental challenge couldn't find a beer mug and when he finally did, could not figure out how to pour a beer. After 5 minutes of trying to pour a beer, he finally places a pint glass in front of me with about 3" of head and asks me if that looked okay to which I replied no, it doesn't. He disappeared into the back to supposedly fix or replace the keg never to be seen again. A couple of other staff came out and apologetically said they were out of beer mugs which I was not aware was a problem. All this time I thought he was in the back trying to swap out a keg. In addition, I was the only person at the bar and there were only two other patrons in the restaurant, so they were not busy. After another 5 minutes and no beer or anyone to take my order, I decided to leave and try my luck getting a slice at the takeout counter. The young girl at the takeout counter also looked and spoke as if though she may have been high or perhaps exhausted. This was early afternoon on a Saturday. She struggled to tell me what pizzas she had available by the slice and would look at the pies but couldn't formulate the words to describe or name them. I was able to buy a slice and take it to go and I'm happy to report the pizza was in fact tasty. However, the experience left me rather bewildered, and I will not be returning to Otto's unless I'm also high so I can be on the same level as the staff. :-)

I'm giving them 2 stars because this place has potential and makes good pizza, but they need new staff and a strong...

So we used to go here as a family somewhat often. Frankly, as of late we have pursued other options due to the open drug use which frequently occurs right outside the doorway. I had to actually explain to my 5 year old what the dirty man was doing with the spoon last summer. Staff was unbothered of course, allowing drug addicts to use unbothered until they die is apparently a part of Otto’s corporate value system.

So then when you have a street preacher doing outreach, Otto likes to send their staff out to destroy their property and kick them off of public space.

Until Ottos handles this appropriately I intend to inform more of the people in my community exactly what Ottos and their staff values in a community. I wish Ottos gave even 0.00001% of that energy they have for harassing preachers and spent it on cleaning up the open air drug market and literal death ocurring right outside their doors EVERY DAY.

Perhaps harassing a peaceful preacher takes less moral courage than doing what it takes to actually save the lives of the addicts who live directly outside this location, and perhaps that dynamic and value system which Ottos clearly endorses explains a lot of why Portland looks how it does today as opposed to how it looked a...