‘X’ marks the spot, even if the spot keeps changing

“My mom is the third butt to the right in the sculpture,” says Tiffany Koepp, 24. “I watched the unveiling on the local news. It was a big story at the time.” Koepp is referring to the famous showgirls sculpture in front of the Riviera on the Strip that since 1997 has been a favorite backdrop for tourists’ snaps.

Nowadays, Koepp works as the company manager for “X Burlesque,” the topless show her mom, Angela Stabile, has produced on the Strip since retiring from the stage. We are talking at the celebration of the first anniversary of “X’s” arrival at the Flamingo.

Growing up around Vegas entertainment, Koepp, who had her first child four months ago with her husband, a lighting director, says she could never see herself in any other line of work or living in any other town. “I am such a Vegas person.”

It is a possibility she has had to consider as “X,” since first opening in 2002, has had to survive multiple venue changes, a resort change, as well as a period as a national touring show. According to Koepp: “So many shows open and close so quickly. You either have to have an insane amount of money for the slow times or you have to be successful. We had to be successful. We don’t have the casino money. We don’t have a super-rich producer who can keep throwing money into it like ‘Fashionistas.’ ”

This is the less glamorous side of Strip entertainment, outside the casino-money network. Everyone works hard and no one gets rich, the theory goes on an independent show. Koepp says the “X” showgirl dancers are required to do 25 to 30 promotional appearances a month in addition to performing in the show to earn about $50,000 a year. “They sometimes do promotions at 7 a.m. after doing a midnight show. We have to do a lot of grass-roots PR just to keep it alive.”

A mogul who can sing & dance too

It was a magic moment in 1997 when Wall Street Journal reporter Christina Binkley was standing with Steve Wynn in front of his not-yet-open edifice. “They were testing the fountains in front of the Bellagio, which are choreographed to music. This had become his passion, down to the technology of the fountains and memorizing the music .So he started singing along, and he was not singing quietly,” Binkley recalls. “Then he started dancing. This crowd of people started to gather realizing that this was Steve Wynn. But I don’t think he even knew they were there. He just continued to dance with himself.” Since then, of course, Wynn was bought out of the company that owned Bellagio and built another resort, Wynn Las Vegas, with its aptly named follow-up Encore about to open.

The real money on the Strip, like Wynn’s, isn’t gambled, it is invested by Wall Street, billionaires and hedge funds. In her first book, “Winner Takes All: Steve Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian, Gary Loveman and the Race to Own Vegas,” Binkley, who covered Las Vegas from 1997 to 2005 for the Journal, tells the story of the corporate intrigue and drama of the various buyouts, shifting alliances and, always, the building of ever more expensive resorts. Years working for the Journal allowed Binkley to see many examples of just how different the executives in Vegas are from a typical CEO. “The executives are allowed to ham it up and the smart ones do.”

Maybe the city is expanding too quickly, with some 20,000 new hotel rooms planned by 2010? Not a chance, she thinks.

The downside of high-end

Back in December I went to the opening for Company: American Bistro at Luxor. Company offered a high-end dining experience from chef Adam Sobel. Working on a nightclub model, Company added celebrity investors (including Nicky Hilton, Nick Lachey and Wilmer Valderrama) to kick up the restaurant’s appeal. A VP for Luxor told me at the time: “Restaurants have not only become a dining experience but an entertainment experience.”

Now Sobel has resigned, after the departure of other key members of the cooking staff. And Company is remaking its menu into a more affordable and simpler dining experience. In its next incarnation, according to Deborah Krause, vice president of Food & Beverage for Pure Management Group, Company 2.0 will be more affordable and the food more familiar. A bar menu is being added for the first time. No more quail eggs, and Sunday night is now buttermilk-fried chicken with Parmesan mashed potatoes. Also, the restaurant will be open seven nights a week instead of five.

According to Krause: “We learned people want a menu that they feel is approachable,” she said.

It turns out that people will let a Hilton sister lead them to dance and drink but not to dine. But more importantly, if this sort of food cannot succeed in a prime position across from the packed and hot LAX nightclub, maybe the nightclub crowd and the fine-dining crowd don’t overlap as much as many people assumed. And if that is true, it may be there is a good reason that the star chefs congregate mostly at the high-end resorts such as the Wynn, Venetian and Caesars.

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For more of what’s happening on and off the Strip, see latimes.com/movablebuffet.