Lady Zen delivers some spoken word truth at the OTTO Pizza Christmas party in December 2011, which took place at the OTTO Pizza on Munjoy Hill.

The folks who work at OTTO Pizza are an eclectic bunch, no doubt, but it’s not often that one of our own gets a cover story in a well-read local mag.

Lady Zen, a jazz singer and poet who also happens to work at OTTO Pizza‘s Munjoy Hill shop at 225 Congress St., in Portland, Maine, got a helluva write-up this month in The Bollard, a monthly magazine in Portland that’s become a must-read for anyone who wants to keep up with the lowdown on what’s going on culturally in this town.

Not only did The Bollard’s publisher, Chris Busby, who wrote the piece himself, manage to convey a compelling account of her life story, he also delivered a convincing argument as to why her shows are quickly becoming can’t-miss events wherever she plays.

From The Bollard piece:

The most powerful voice in Portland belongs to a 40-year-old Brazilian Buddhist from the Bible Belt who makes her living slinging pizza. Her name is Alzenira Santos Amaral Quezada. You may know her as Lady Zen.

Lady Zen’s music mirrors her life: both have been all over the map. On the heels of a heartbreaking year, Lady Zen is poised to make her strongest music yet in 2012. She’s learning how to meld her influences into a sound that’s uniquely her own.

You’ve never heard anyone like Lady Zen around here. And you ain’t heard nothin’ yet.

Lady Zen, who works the OTTO Pizza kitchen on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and also takes a turn hosting on Friday nights, has a couple of gigs coming up that promise to showcase different aspects of her amazing talent and engaging persona.

The first is set for Feb. 14, (Valentine’s Day, ya know) at The Big Easy, where she’ll recreate Erykah Badu‘s phenomenal record, “Baduizm,” in its entirety — for the first set. In the second set, she and her band will present a complement of her original tunes, which she said she’s reworking specifically for this performance.

“We’re rearranging the songs to reflect the feel of Erykah Badu’s album, so the show will flow,” Lady Zen said. “This isn’t going to be some sit-down jazz thing, it’s going to be a get-up-and-shake-your-booty kind of thing.”

The second gig on the horizon represents something else entirely — exactly what, however, remains to be seen: Lady Zen will be participating in the Space Gallery’s 48-hour Music Festival, with a show set for Saturday, Feb. 18.

What, you make ask, is the 48-hour Music Festival? Let’s let the folks from the Space Gallery answer that one. From the Space Gallery’s webpage:

Thirty adventurous artists from different Portland bands of all genres agree to step out of their comfort zones and be randomly shuffled into 6 supergroups, announced on Thursday afternoon. No members of these newly formed bands are allowed to have previous musical history with one another. From there, each band has exactly 48 hours to construct and practice a 25 minute set of material, culminating in the Saturday performance.

So, mark the dates down in your datebooks, folks, and try to hit at least one or both, if at possible.

And if you find yourself on Munjoy Hill sometime, stop in at OTTO Pizza, grab a slice and a refreshing beverage, and introduce yourself to Lady Zen — and maybe you’ll be able to say you knew her when …

In the meantime, you can check out a couple of tunes from her recent gig at the Big Easy at The Bollard’s website, or you can go straight to the source at her own website.

Nellie Lennon, a winner of the Kindness and Respect Award at the Hall School, steps up to collect her certificate and OTTO Pizza gift card.

All too often, the kids who get attention are the ones who are causing trouble or acting out in some way, and for the folks who run the after-school programs at Portland’s Recreation and Facilities Department, that didn’t seem right.

The kids who do the right thing, who make the right choices, should get some recognition, too.

So this year, the Rec Department undertook an effort to call out those kids who go above and beyond what’s expected of them to show kindness and generosity to others, be they peers or parents, teachers or counselors.

Corbett Dooley, another Kindness and Respect Award winner at the Hall School, receives his certificate and OTTO Pizza gift card.

Each month, since the beginning of school back in September, the counselors at each program — the city runs after-school programs at each elementary school — selected those kids who really stood out when it came to showing respect and kindness toward others, and this week, the winners got their reward: a special certificate recognizing their achievement and … free pizza from OTTO Pizza! Specifically, a gift card good for a free large pizza of their choice.

The first awards were handed out this evening to the eight winners at the Hall School, where the kids got what they deserved — recognition from their peers and parents, and some free pizza.

Next week, the same thing will happen at Longfellow Elementary school and at the newly opened Ocean Elementary and at the end of the school year, the winners at Portland’s remaining elementary schools will be recognized as well.

OTTO Pizza is proud to work with the Rec Department in this effort. Congratulations to the winners!

After the segment, the crew dug in and four pies were gone within about 10 minutes.

OTTO Pizza's Anthony Allen and Mike Keon serve up some fresh hot slices on the Fox Morning Show this morning in Portland, Maine.

It was hard to tell which pie the crew liked better — the Masher (mashed potato, bacon and scallion) or the Roasted Tomato, Ricotta and Fresh Basil.

A good time was had by all, and Mike and Anthony left the studio with a standing invitation to come back anytime.

On Monday, Dec. 19, you can grab yourself a slice of OTTO Pizza's award-winning pie for free at the 576 Congress Street, in Portland, Maine, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.

You may have heard the vicious, pernicious rumor — or as our Canadian friends to the north might put it, rumour — that Monday, Dec. 19 has been designated as a so-called “Free Slice Day” at OTTO Pizza.

Well, it’s true. All of it. Here’s the deal …

Monday, Dec. 19, is, in fact, Free Slice Day at OTTO Pizza’s shop at 576 Congress Street in Portland, Maine’s Arts District. The store will open at its regular time, 11 a.m., and close at about 1:30 p.m. so the employees can prepare themselves for the mayhem to come.

At 2 p.m., the doors will be thrown open once again, whereupon Free Slice Day will be in full effect.

How does it work? Simple …

From 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., anyone who stops in can pick up one free slice of OTTO Pizza’s award-winninng pizza, any variety, on the house. One to a customer, please — we’d like everyone who wants one to get one. OTTO employees who aren’t busily making more pie to keep the pizza flowing will be on hand and passing the hat to benefit local non-profit agencies.

There might even be a few of our new, wicked cool t-shirts available, hot off the press … so get there early.

A Buddhist monk enjoys a slice of OTTO Pizza at the 576 Congress Street shop in Portland, Maine's Arts District.

At 6 p.m., the store will close so OTTO Pizza employees can retire for the evening to enjoy the OTTO Pizza Christmas party, which promises to be a rager of epic proportion … but that’s another story, and by the way, whatever you might have heard about the last OTTO party on Aug. 21, when the segment about OTTO Pizza aired on the Cooking Channel’s “Pizza Out of the Box,” is patently false — you can check the police reports for yourself, if you like …

Anyway, by now you’re probably asking yourself, “Why? Why would they do it? Why would they give away so much of that awesome pizza?”

Well, let’s just call it OTTO Pizza’s way of saying, “Thank you,” to the people of Portland, Maine, for everything they’ve done for OTTO in the 18 months or so since the first shop opened at 576 Congress Street — home of the “Free Slice Day.”

See you there!

An OTTO Pizza customer captured his thoughts about OTTO Pizza’s Pepperoni and Mashed Potato, Bacon and Scallion slices and posted them to his YouTube channel. If you’ve got a minute, check it out!

Jonathan Richman entertains the crowd at Portland, Maine's Space Gallery with songs from his latest release, "O Moon."

Ask the folks who live and work in and around Portland, Maine, and they’ll tell you that the city’s burgeoning arts scene plays a large role in what makes Portland such a cool little town. Of course, there are many other reasons, but the astonishing variety of artists, musicians, actors, writers, poets and playwrites who call Portland home, or pass through as they’re doing shows here, produce an aura of creative possibility that has become part of the fabric of life in the greater Portland area.

And OTTO Pizza‘s Arts District Shop at 576 Congress Street is right in the heart of the action — and because of that, every once in a while, something happens that allows us to transcend the rhythm of our day-in, day-out lives, step back and wonder at the beauty of it all.

Which is exactly what happened the recently when Jonathan Richman stopped in before his recent show at the Space Gallery. The show was part of his ongoing tour in support of his new record, “O Moon.”

Turns out that OTTO Pizza co-owner Mike Keon, as well as a couple of the members of the crew at the OTTO Pizza Arts District shop are big Jonathan Richman fans. The Space Gallery’s only a few doors down, so Mike had sent down a couple of pizzas so Jonathan wouldn’t have to take the stage hungry.

To show his thanks, Jonathan decided to stop in with his guitar, unannounced, and play a couple of tunes.

Seth Condon, the manager who was on that night, said he wasn’t exactly sure what was going on when Richman came in and started playing. He didn’t announce himself or say anything, Seth said, he just started playing, strolling through both OTTO and ENZO, the attached wine bar, before heading out the door and back down the street to the Space Gallery to do his show.

“I didn’t recognize any of the tunes he did,” Condon said, “but a couple of the customers knew exactly who he was when he started playing.”

Unfortunately, no one got so much as a photo of Jonathan during his visit to OTTO Pizza but the OTTO contingent that attended the show that night did get a couple of shots of him on stage at the Space Gallery.

And, for what it’s worth, if Jonathan Richman’s playing in your town, don’t miss it. He’s a great songwriter who puts on a fantastic show.

The bar that used to be in The Rat is now serving a whole new crowd at Enzo, the wine bar attached to OTTO Pizza in Portland, Maine's Arts District.

A lot of the folks who come to Enzo, the wine bar attached to OTTO Pizza in Portland, Maine’s Congress Street Arts District, say the place feels like it’s been there forever, and indeed it does.

And that’s no accident.

Everything in the place, from the table and chairs on the floor to the lighting above, was chosen to help create to a comfortable sense of familiarity that feels as if it could only have come from decades of customers enjoying a glass of wine or an ice-cold pint with a slice of their favorite OTTO pizza.

And the centerpiece of it all is the bar, a majestic and beautifully carved piece of craftsmanship in mahogany that exudes a sense of history, of times gone by and historic eras – and that’s not far from the truth, because this bar was once upon a time at the heart of one of rock’s legendary outposts: The Rat, located in Boston’s Kenmore Square.

The Rat, in Boston's Kenmore Square, back in The Day.

The Rat (short for The Rathskeller) was perhaps Boston’s premier venue for live music, and pretty much everybody who was anybody – and anybody who wanted to be somebody – played there before the place was torn down in 1997 to make way for a luxury hotel in a kinder, gentler Kenmore Square. It featured a restaurant upstairs and a filthy little dive bar downstairs that became home to the city’s burgeoning punk rock scene back in the late ‘70s.

OTTO co-owner Mike Keon and his friend, Robert Ruderman, bought the bar, which was in several pieces, when they discovered it in an architectural salvage shop in Boston called Restoration Resources. Ultimately, Ruderman took home two sections of the bar, while Mike took possession of the remaining three – one of which is now in Enzo. The other two Mike has in storage, waiting for the day when he can find a suitable home for them.

So the next time you’re in Enzo, just think: you could be having a beer in the exact spot where, years ago, Bono or Joe Strummer or Sting or Michael Stipe were doing the very same thing, right before they went on stage.