At the heart of Tony Vitale’s career there has always been music. Tony grew up in New York City’s borough of the Bronx, where DJs were neighborhood superstars. At a young age Tony was drawn to turntables and the house music scene. As a teenager, Tony started DJing all around his neighborhood and quickly turned his passion into a career. After traveling the world as a professional DJ, he was drawn to Chicago ready to do something new.
“There’s that affinity to the roots of turntablism, the roots of house music, which is why it’s important to be here in Chicago,” Tony said.
In 2012, Tony began working for TastyTrade, an online trading brokerage, as an executive producer for a live video series called Bootstrapping in America, which featured entrepreneurs in Chicago and the surrounding areas.
Through Bootstrapping, Tony met entrepreneurs Yvonne Paul and Jeff LaBelle, who had created a vertical turntable coined the “floating record player”, which allowed music lovers to “see” their favorite music as it plays. In love with their product, Tony purchased a turntable and became an early investor in their Kickstarter project in 2014.
At the start of the pandemic, Tony’s turntable needed repairs and when he reached out to Yvonne and Jeff, he learned the company had gone under. Unwilling to let this great product disappear from the market, Tony combined his passion for music and professional experience to tackle a new opportunity.
After expressing interest in the company’s future, Tony was introduced to fellow entrepreneur Frank Pastorio who shared Tony’s passion for the vertical record player. Together, they purchased the company and renamed it Vertical Grooves, to put their own spin on it.
Operating first as a repair service for other floating turntables, Vertical Grooves fixed minor issues in the original model. Operating out of mHub, an innovation center for physical product development in Chicago’s Near West Side neighborhood, helped deepen their understanding and commitment to creating quality products.
“There is success when you love a product or love a service totally,” said Tony. “When the going gets tough, you remember that’s why you’re doing what you’re doing.”
In 2020, they launched the updated Vertical Turntable along with the Gramovox, a Bluetooth gramophone. Since their release, both products have been improved to the point where they can now be manufactured instead of made by hand.
For Vertical Grooves, most of the year’s profit comes from the holiday season due to seasonal demand. As a result of this, funding is necessary in the spring and summer when the need to ramp up production is at odds with slower business periods, which led Tony to A4CB in 2024 where he secured a small business loan from A4CB to cover this slower period.
“The reality is A4CB has been the most supportive,” shared Tony.
Today, Vertical Grooves is based in Waukegan, Illinois, where Tony oversees a network of professionals who handle everything from supplying wood to manufacturing. As Tony and Frank look to grow the company has found success in niche markets like boutique hotels and cigar bars and they plan to team up with local record stores as marketing affiliates to sell these products and continue to share their passion for music in the city where the house genre started.
