I went to college in Boston ”“ a place perhaps known best for its New England clam chowder. But still, it was college. So many nights (some of which I can’t say I remember all too well) were spent gorging myself with grease-laden slices of the food universally spoken: pizza.

“It’s good, but it’s no New York slice,” my friends from Long Island would tell me, while my one friend from Chicago longed for a denser, deeper pie. But to me, it was heaven. Of the several pizza joints dotting the flanks of Commonwealth Avenue, which runs through Boston University’s sprawling Charles River Campus like a main artery, there were two that reigned supreme: T. Anthony’s Pizzeria and Upper Crust Pizzeria. They were different ”“ the former serving more of a New York-style pizza and the latter more of a Neapolitan-style one, but equally delicious.

Then, everything changed. When I returned to campus in the fall of 2012, for the start of my junior year, I discovered Upper Crust had vanished. In its place stood another restaurant. A familiar, bottle-cap circle marked its gleaming, glass front and surrounded the large, white letters: “Portland, Maine OTTO Pizza.” I was confused. How had this Congress Street calling card migrated so far south in such a short time? What had happened to Upper Crust? But these questions had to wait. After all, I was only standing there on the curb because I was hungry.

So I ate. And then I ate again. For two years straight. For lunch, for dinner, inside, on the go. OTTO became the first choice in pizza for my friends and me. It was close. It was good. It was (relatively) inexpensive. And for once, there was no weighing it against New York or Chicago standards because OTTO stood on its own, slinging pies apart from the rest. You couldn’t get mashed potatoes, bacon and scallions on a pizza anywhere else. But that signature slice wasn’t the only thing keeping lines long there. OTTO continually offered customers something new, exciting and against-the-grain when it came to pizza toppings, from pulled pork to butternut squash to mangos and cranberries and everything in between.

T. Anthony’s remained for those recurrent cheese-pizza hankerings, but OTTO was, so to speak, a place for pizza when you were sort of sick of pizza. It’s a funny thing to admit: a Mainer all my life, and I only truly discovered the magic of OTTO when I was living out of state. Now that I’m living in Maine full-time, I continue to fill my belly with OTTO, frequenting its location on Cottage Road in South Portland.

Only recently did I find out what had happened almost five years ago ”“ how OTTO bumped the immensely popular Upper Crust off of its throne. For OTTO, it was the best of times, but for Upper Crust, it was the worst of times.

In 2009, after less than a decade in business, Upper Crust became the target of a fiery legal battle. The U.S. Department of Labor mandated the Boston-based pizza chain pay $340,000 to workers who claimed they were never compensated for the overtime hours they put in. OTTO, on the other hand, opened its first location in Portland that year, on the corner of Congress and Forest streets.

In 2010, a lawsuit was filed against Upper Crust, alleging that its owner, Jordan Tobins, had paid his workers the extra money but demanded they pay it back in order to keep their jobs. Meanwhile, OTTO grew to three locations in 2010 ”“ two in Portland and one in Harvard Square in Cambridge. In 2012, still stuck in the legal muck, Upper Crust filed for bankruptcy, prompting a rapid closing of over half of its 21 locations. But for OTTO, the good times continued, and it opened its fourth and fifth locations that year ”“ the latter of the two occupying Upper Crust’s former residency on BU’s campus.

OTTO has since opened three more locations ”“ that’s eight (and there’s a ninth on the way) ”“ around Portland, Boston and in other parts of Massachusetts. Upper Crust no longer occupies many of its former locations ”“ such as the one on B.U.’s campus ”“ but, according to the company’s website, there are still six in operation in Massachusetts. I wish them the best in reviving what was once an acclaimed eatery, and I’ll have to give it a try when I find myself in Boston again. But in the meantime, I say, keep on OTTO-ing on.

— Angelo J. Verzoni is a copy editor and freelance writer for the Journal Tribune.