OTTO Pizza Encourages Customers to Order Direct From Restaurant

By Celina Colby

As COVID-19 has altered the landscape of dining out, Brookline restaurants have had to pivot to find new ways of serving and safely delivering food. For OTTO Pizza on Harvard Avenue, having a long history of delivery, takeout, and dine-in options has allowed them to switch up their business model quickly and effectively. These tools will come in handy again for the anticipated decrease in in-person diners during fall and winter.

“The day after dining rooms closed, we realized a 60 percent drop in sales overnight. Not all from the closed rooms, but also because people were just not comfortable ordering any food,” OTTO co-owner Anthony Allen told BrooklineHub. “By mid-April, we had recovered to 75 percent pre-COVID sales. By Mid-May, we were at 85/87 percent ‘pre-COVID’ sales and have remained there to this day.”

This rapid recovery was due to several quickly implemented strategies, including a mobile pickup program that the team had in place just two days after the Governor mandated shutdowns. This allowed customers to order, pay, and pick up their pizzas without any interaction with the staff. Touchless delivery came next, with drivers dropping outdoor orders outside of homes to avoid a close contact transaction. There’s no question that having a robust takeout customer base already existing was crucial to this comeback. “Without strong takeout and delivery, OTTO would be no more,” says Allen.

These strategies will carry over nicely into the fall and winter. Allen says he anticipates the drop off in revenue from patio seating, but it shouldn’t affect their bottom line much because of the heavy takeout and delivery business.

OTTO has been lucky to have the model and resources to pivot quickly and effectively during COVID-19, but it hasn’t been easy. Allen says it was a slow grind building those sales up at the beginning of the shutdown. But even more challenging has been dealing with third party orders through services like GrubHub.

Allen says 60 percent of Coolidge Corner sales are currently coming from third party delivery services. This is problematic for several reasons. Most importantly, third party services take a 20-25 percent cut of the order, dramatically reducing profits on those pizzas. OTTO also loses complete quality control over the delivery process; in many cases, they don’t even have the customer contact information to rectify a problem if one arises.

“That’s not sustainable,” says Allen. “There’s a tipping point where a restaurant’s profit and loss can’t sustain the third party fee burden. The reward to OTTO for driving organic sales is enormous as well as critical.”

For OTTO and other local restaurants, it’s always more helpful to the business to order takeout or delivery directly from them rather than a third party service. There are monetary incentives to do so, like the OTTO rewards program that allows you to build points towards money off and free pizza. But most importantly, ordering directly from a restaurant is the best way to support the local economy.

“If I’m ordering at home, I love the Sausage and Vidalia or the Pulled Pork and Scallion,” says Allen. The next time you check out Allen’s favorite flavors, be sure to call the shop directly. It might make the pizza taste extra sweet.

BrooklineHub.com is a 501C3 non-profit dedicated to reporting and commenting on life, culture and community in Brookline. As part of our mission, we advocate for non-profits vital in making this a better place to live, and by sponsoring and supporting events that promote community-building. We hold the belief that as a community, we should foster the well-being of all, remaining mindful of our young people, seniors, and underprivileged.