Coinman of the Month
VINCENT STORINO
'1 'his month's Coinman has a certain edge over his
competitors - he's got the twenty-first century on
his side. With the use of a computer (a Philips P959
with a P142 disc), Vincent Storino has eliminated a
lot of headaches his counterparts are still troubling
over.
When we caught wind of this ultra-modern
approach to operating in the coin machine business
today we felt this was the stuff Coinmen are made
of·
We were right. Vinnie is a It:Lrge operator (he
operates in about 800 locations with about 1,500
music and game pieces). But in many cases, he's
still thinking like the small operator. For instance,
"You've got to watch your business everyday ... if
you lose a location, you've got to get out there and
get another one. "
Vinnie got into the business right out of high
school when at the age of 18 he, his father, and his
brother Pat started S&S Amusement in Toms
River, New Jersey. That was back in 1954. His
father had been in the coin-op business back in the
'90s in Newark, New Jersey but had sold out that
route later.
So when the three Storinos started looking
around for business opportunities, the coin-op
industry seemed the natural choice since it was
what the three of them knew the best. They started
S&S with just five machines, but they were hungry
8
for business and within six months saw their first
big break when they purchased a route with 100
locations and 900 machines.
Since then S&S has expanded into six New
Jersey counties, It:Lrgely through acquisitions; and
It:Lst year Vinnie took over complete ownership of
S&S when his brother Pat sold out his interest in
the company to him and took to the beaches. Pat
now operates a beach resort in South Jersey called
Jenkinson's.
Vinnie's wife's name is Nina. And his four
children are Anthony, 17; Maria, 15; Antonetta, 19;
and Vincent, 9.
The children figure in quite prominently at S&S
A musement. Maria, for instance, works part time
for her father and has taken over all his music
programming. As Vinnie puts it, "Who knows
better than a 15-year-old what to buy?" And then
he adds, "We're having less trouble with music now
than we've ever had before. " For an operator who
buys around 1,500 records a week, that's saying a
lot.
His oldest son, Anthony, is also working for him
on a part time basis with a route.
This month's Coinman is president of a small
association in South New Jersey called the Garden
State Music Operators Association; there are about
14 members in the association. He is also a member
of the Coin Council in New Jersey and the
A .M.O.A.
PLAY METER , January, 1978