We have good news and bad news. Let's start with the not-so-good and work our way into happier territory.
A Little Off the Top was indeed a classic Las Vegas institution for a while, offering all the usual salon services provided by an above-averagely flamboyant and under-averagely attired group of stylists.
You'd think it would've been a natural for Las Vegas, but alas, the lingerie theme was abandoned 13 years ago, due to successive lawsuits. Yes, although the salon was located in a not-too-posh corner of town (next door to a tattoo parlor in a strip mall at Valley View and Sahara, to be precise), the owners found themselves constantly taken to court by worthy citizens who felt their presence was morally corrupting and conceivably in violation of some health code.
Although they won every case, the proprietors, with whom we spoke, explained that eventually they got tired of spending more time in court than they did cutting hair. They moved to Decatur and then again to 4110 S. Maryland Parkway, where they still operate a salon under the equally excellent, although less exclusive, name of Curl Up & Dye. You'll find no lingerie these days, but you can reminisce about the good old days with the owners.
In spite of our whole "Sin City" reputation, A Little Off the Top's is not the only scantily-clad experiment that died in Las Vegas. The Rio and Tuscany casinos both experimented with bikini-garbed dealers for a while, but the Rio's pit closed about a year ago (and no bad thing -– they paid even money on blackjacks!) and the Tuscany axed its bikini blackjack and crap pit a couple of years back.
Anthony Curtis has vague recollections of a topless- or bikini-car-wash service at some point back in the day, but he never visited it and we could find no trace. Polly Esther's nightclub at the Stratosphere has an almost-weekly bikini-car-wash contest (wear your bikini for free drink specials) but that's it, as far as we know.
On a previous occasion when we were addressing (should that be undressing?) the whole topless issue, we heard from a San Diego reader who wrote in with the following tantalizing reminiscence: "I was stationed at Lake Mead Base in North Las Vegas in the early '60s and we used to play blackjack at the Silver Dollar, where all the women dealers were topless." We've been unable to find out anything further about that, but if anyone else remembers either this or the topless car wash, please let us know.
Sin gentlemen's club actually tried to introduce free topless poker tournaments last year, where players would compete for non-cash prizes in games dealt by breast-bearing dealers, but the Gaming Control Board shut down that idea before it ever got off the ground.
Even so-called "European-style," i.e., topless, sunbathing was a late arrival in Las Vegas, heralded by the opening of the Venus Pool Club at Caesars in the late '90s. These days it's the only topless pool open to non-guests year-round (for a fee). Wynn Las Vegas also has a year-round European-style pool area, but the Sunset Terrace is for guests only (must show a room key). Bare (Mirage), Beach Club 25 (Stratosphere), and Moorea Beach Club (Mandalay Bay) are all now closed for the season, while Tao Beach scrapped its topless policy pretty soon after opening.
All that said, we do have some good news for anyone looking for a little Vegas-style titillation outside of the showrooms and strip clubs. Welcome Sexxpresso, a drive-through coffee stand located at 670 E. Flamingo, where the "bodacious baristas" (servers) wear lingerie at work and are encouraged to flirt with the customers.
The owners of this new enterprise, Massimo Catinella and Dennis "Mr. Sexxpresso" Morrison, apparently got the idea from Morrison's 70-year-old mother, who read an article about a similar pre-existing venture in America's coffee capital, Seattle. They found a coffee-cup-shaped building (serendipity or what?) a mile east of the Strip
