In the heart of postindustrial Cleveland, in one of those cheery urban-reclamation areas with freshly painted brick buildings and almost unnaturally green lawn spaces, you’ll find Gotta Groove Records, one of around 20 plants in the United States that still press vinyl. On the day I visited, the guts of this converted elevator factory were packed with hissing, clanking vintage record presses, and the walls were lined with band fliers and colored LPs. A dry-erase board at the far end of the shop displayed the day’s jobs, Tom Waits and Tim Buckley among them.

Gotta Groove’s owner, a square-jawed, 55-year-old former corporate attorney named Vince Slusarz, explained why he was running such a seemingly outmoded operation. He spent 24 years with a water-processing-equipment manufacturer, he said, eventually rising to become the chief operating officer. But when he finally left the company in 2008, right around the time the economy was starting to implode, he had to figure out something else to do.

“I wanted to start a business and see what that was like,” he said. “I wanted to do something in manufacturing, because I really believe that’s important for this country. And I wanted to do something in Cleveland.”

He toyed with the idea of craft brewing. But as a middle-aged music fan who still had his old LPs, he was intrigued that his college-age daughter had suddenly begun buying vinyl. So he researched the industry, which led him to visit a record plant in Newark that was liquidating its equipment. He bought all of it on the spot and imported it back home. Before long, Gotta Groove was up and running. Its initial run of 100 records took two weeks to complete. Now the company turns out about 20,000 units over the same period of time.