I Worked a P Diddy's Party & Other NYC Stories with Heather Zeitswolfe(Savvy Frugal Vegan)

If you need a laugh, you've got to check this episode out!

Heather Zeitzwolfe and Elaine share some of their crazier NYC stories fromwhen they both moved to the city, even though it was at different times, the themes were familiar. 
And Yes, I really worked a P Diddy Party at a restaurant where I worked....you'll have to listen to get all the details...

Heather has had many careers and businesses and podcasts. 
Currently she's on a mission to help 1 million people in adopting and maintaining a healthy, affordable, plant-based diet. 

"Compassion starts on our plates because we are what we eat!" - Heather Zeitzwolfe

As the Savvy Frugal Vegan, I aim to disrupt the status quo and encourage others to think differently about their diet, ethics, and environmental impact. I want to raise people's awareness of where their food comes from. My dream is to enlighten others to avoid eating anything that has a mother.
Check out Heather's Website and her YouTube Channel.

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Transcript

0:07

Oh girl. I'm just so happy to have you. So hi everybody. My name is Elaine. I am here. Captivate the mic. I am here with the magnificent Fabulous. Heather Zaitzwolf, who I'm so grateful. She's so busy running three different companies that she took time out of her busy schedule to be with us. Because Heather, you are just such a delight. So now we're going to segue into New York stories. Because when I was on a. A trip with Heather. We were talking about, being new in New York and some of the crazy things you do because it's such a crazy thing. I'm going to tell you mine first and then we'll tell you yours if that's okay. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So I'm new in New York City. I I've been sober. I moved to New York city and got sober at the same time, which is, was very challenging. It was God's plan, but Oh my, they kept saying, don't change anything. And I had to keep moving. I had to keep temping. And so I ended up at this restaurant. And I it was a really hot new restaurant in Midtown. And it was, I won't say the name, but it was an old movie theater that they had converted and there was this huge Buddha. So it was like Buddha bar in Paris and it was really cool and hip and they had. DJs on the weekend, which I didn't know till after I'd been trained because I was training for the marathon. I was getting up at six in the morning. So I was like, what do you mean DJs until two? What? I thought this was a restaurant. Anyway, so they're like oh, we're going to do you want to work the P Diddy party? P Diddy is going to have a party before MTV awards. P Diddy. And I was like, yes, it's going to be so exciting. All of these movie stars and music moguls and I get to work it and some people were like, no, I don't want to work that. And I was like, Oh, why I want to have this whole experience. It's going to be so cool. We get there early, everything's getting set up. There's fancy extra flowers everywhere. There's all this extra stuff. He would send his own people to a place. It was already judged, but. Anyway, so as the night goes on, there's, it's getting more and more crowded and it's it's It's got like a thuggy vibe a little bit. And there's most people, I would say by 10 o'clock at night, we're just drinking straight out of the champagne bottles, boob clicquot, which is, it's not Dom Perignon, but it's not like Andrews, and there, so there's all these people just walking around and then all these security guys. I remember thinking, why do they look so nervous? Like, why are they so nervous? Because I was just so naive. And it slowly dawned on me, as the night wore on Oh, people have guns. People are carrying guns. There are guns. They have guns. They have guns. Like I was just like, why is this? Oh, like it was like this very slow because I'm like working. And then you realize and it's dark, it's already like a dark place. And I swear the lights just seem to get me getting darker and darker. And so there's like more and more like stuff getting. thrown and then they're like, don't go in that corner. Don't avoid that corner. And one of my friends was like, yeah they're assaulting. Like stuff is happening. Just don't even walk over there. Just stay in this quarter. And by this time it's like midnight and I'm thinking. Oh, this was like the worst idea I've ever had and then I'm seeing more and more, thuggy things happening and more and more. And then P Diddy got up on the stage and was like, turn down for what? And we're going to stay till everybody else has to go to work. And I remember just thinking, oh no. Anyway, it was, and finally, like at four in the morning. They finally put the lights up and they politely asked everybody to leave and I remember watching the security guys sweat, like they were so nervous that something was going to happen and I had not, I remember just thinking, Oh, this is the worst idea I've ever had. And then we finally got everybody to leave there. Nobody, I know that. Stuff went down in that corner, but there were no gunshots fired in this restaurant. And then we're like literally carrying tables through rivers of champagne on the floor at six in the morning. And I remember I was I have to find a different job. So I just remember, it was just a, to me, it was a great lesson of being super excited, but not thinking it all the way through and getting swept away in the excitement of it. And I'm telling this Obviously, P Diddy's in the news a lot, but I'm telling this because as entrepreneurs, you have to get excited about what you're doing, or you're not going to make it. And you get to be careful about what you get excited about. So I've learned, and I think Heather's done this too, of take some time before you say yes to everything. Think it through. Yes. It's exciting to be invited to do cool things. It's good. It because, that could have gone way differently and thank God, it, it was okay. And then I ended up getting a better restaurant with not, I wasn't there until four anyway, so that's one of my crazier New York stories. I just think it's so funny. Cause I was like, it's going to be so much. And then a few hours later, I'm like, I'm actually scared for my life, so that's one of my, I know you have a great New York story, Heather, you have so many, yeah, so many I'll just talk about, places that I lived and. When you want to live in New York, you have to give up a lot, like the convenience of living in a, like a regular house or apartment that is just like not a thing. And so you pretty much have to decide, will I suffer to get what I want and, is it worth it? And sometimes it wears you out and, choose you up and spit you out. But I had the first time I lived in New York, I was 19 years old and I lived in Queens and then I turned 20 after that I left and then I came back. So the second time I was in New York, I was probably at that point. 22 I'm, I think, and I was like, I'm going to live in Manhattan this time. I don't, none of this Queens business, the suburbs in the city. Yeah. And I wanted to put in the village. It's had to be in East village. I was like, I wanted to be a village person. And But but the East village is so cool. It is so fun and funky. It is that's where like famous CBGBs, it's just like such a cool scene, right? It was still, that was still a thing. Yeah. And so this was early nineties. So we're talking about probably like 91, 92, somewhere in there. And. So it was still edgy and Giuliani had not come through and cleaned it up. But to get to New York City, I had to first have someplace to stay. My brother had a friend that was living in Astoria, which is in Queens. So I was back in Queens. I stayed in his house and I had a couple of suitcases and I needed to find a job. And I don't even know if he had a bed in the room that I was sleeping in, but he, He had ants. That's what he did have. And there was ants crawling all through my luggage. I just tons of ants. Oh, no! He did not have any a full length mirror. Now, I just, like, all I wanted to do was, like, go to nightclubs and, discover the nightlife and all that. No mirrors! I what?! So I had to go to a local hardware store and I'm like dragging this mirror through the streets in New York, up to this apartment so that I can see myself in this like cheap mirror. But still I got out of here. So with the ants and everything, and I was trying to find jobs and. I would get like cheap Chinese food and eat that box of Chinese food would last me three days and I didn't have much money. So I would just watch what was a soap operas? Some of the world as the world turns. Yeah, it was right. So that would be like my highlight of the day. So finally then I got a job and I'm like, I'm moving to Manhattan. So my first apartment and I. Really wanted to be in the village, but I think I was on 15th Street, which the village on 14th Street. So I was like, so I got this apartment where it was a studio apartment, except for there was somebody else living in it. And you walk in, there's like a kitchenette, there is like a stereo system a fold out couch. Now when I say a fold out couch, I don't mean like a fold out, like an actual sofa bed, one of those foam things that, it wasn't even a couch, it was a chair. That it was just like four pieces of foam that would fold up to be a chair. And then I unfold that and that was my bed. And then a screen, which was like one of those, like maybe like a Japanese screens and then his bed was on the other side, that was the whole place. So I was, and I had my mirror and I had my suitcases that had some resident, had some ants left in it. Maybe I try to kill all the ants before I brought it into that place. So I lived there for several months and luckily the guy had a sick mom. He was taken care of. Sorry for him, at least it gave me the apartment. So he was away a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it was a little weird, he's like on the side of this thing and I'm just on this like piece of foam came like a through line through my state in New York because getting a bed and moving a bed around is not a good thing. I was like, I gotta move. It turned out there was further down 15th Street near Gramercy Park. This woman was looking for a roommate. And I'm like, okay, I can drag my stuff down 15th Street. And that's a good move. Gramercy Park is gorgeous. Yeah. And just grab it and move it down. I thought maybe I could find a shopping cart. I didn't, I never found a shopping cart. So I'd have to just drag it anyways. So she was this woman that she had this whole apartment. So she had this extra bedroom and in the bedroom, you walk in and it's basically just like a room where the door opens. There's a window that looks into another apartment and straight into another apartment. Nothing can, can't, covering the window and not even really much room between I don't know, maybe a cat could crawl between the two spaces. And there was a desk. And then there was a bed in a loft. This is the whole room. So you walk in and you're like under a desk and then there's a ladder and climb up. And. This bed was so high up to the ceiling, like you could barely sit up and there was a pipe that was like a lot of radiator stuff that happened in New York, this radiator pipe that went up right next to this bed. So I'm up high and a radiator pipe is there. And heat rises and it was those pipes get hot. Yes. It was so freaking hot up in this bed. And then the only area I had below was this little desk area. And I got this it was a velvet Elvis like a. Postery thing to cover the window. So I just had my Elvis and it was like hot pink and velvet said, look at Elvis, when I was getting ready and, but it was so unbelievably hot. So besides that, the woman had a ginormous. Dog that was giant white and furry and the stipulation of living there was you had to walk the dog and of course you have to clean up their poop and then there was other things that happened like not just walking the dog. Now, mind you, I was very goth. I only wore black dog. So it's always covered in dog hair. There was always, you always had black. But with little white hairs all over you and I had no money to get the sticky stuff to get it off, that would just seem like a waste of money when I could be, buying drinks at the club or something, or food. Yeah, or food. And the pipes were old to forget about flushing down your tampon. So they'd have to go in the garbage can. This dog had an affinity for eating tampons. One time I brought a date home and there was bloody tampons everywhere on the floor. Oh my God. Yes. At that point I was like, I think I gotta move out. But there was also another stipulation. This woman was very much into hazelnut coffee that was from a particular place in the village, and so it was by keels, which was the face. Facial place. I love Kiehl's, right? Yes, and so I'd have to go down there and get the special coffee, which I wasn't even that keen about, but that was part of the stipulation. That dog, so I was cleaning up the dog's poop. I had his hair all over me. I had the tampon thing, it was like so much. And you had to get caught. This is a lot of rules. And she ate. Kentucky Fried Chicken with her best friend every single day. I have never seen so much KFC in my life. Anyways, I was like, I gotta get out of here. So then wait, were you a vegan yet? No. Cause that smell just permeates everywhere. You know what I mean? It's Every single day it was like the same order was like mashed potatoes and gravy with I was like, who eats this much KFC? And you're in New York where you have all the culinary choices in the world. Yes. So then I was like, I got to get out of here. So then I found, I was like, I got to get in the village. I want to be on like, I want to be like in Outback City or something, so then I found. an apartment that was right on Houston Street. It was like in it was between B and C, or was it C and D? It was in there somewhere, but it was, it the back side of the building was on Houston Street. So right next to the Lower East Side. And I loved it. That place was, the location was great. My living situation, however, was a little bit on the weird side. Unlike the other ones. Let me, can I interrupt? So Soho, so Houston, Soho, south of Houston. So Soho is where all the artsy those big lofts were. Because, as people are, as manufacturers were leaving New York city, that's where the artists and the poor people and the gay people would come in and trick it out. And there are some amazing lofts there. So that's where you were. That was down the street from me. Okay. You were very close. I was close, but close isn't the same when in New York, like you can go. It may have been a short walk, but so I was looking the Lower East Side, which Clinton Street was the Clinton was one of the streets near me. But. A lot of it was a lot of rundown apartments and this is the 90s. They're like very different than now. We're like the first time I lived there, I had a boyfriend that lived in one of the buildings that was down there and off of Clinton and he had a bathtub in his kitchen. So that kind of tells you What the quality of those apartments were in that area. Okay. So this apartment that I moved into the my the guy that had the apartment. He was this guy that loved Elvis. So here's this weird Elvis thing again. He had a pompadour. He would wear. Cut off hot pant jeans, like jeans, he'd roller skate everywhere. He was the doorman at the knitting factory, which was like down in that area. Oh, Elvis. There was like Elvis shampoo, like a shrine of it in the bathroom. And it was really funny. And he had this look like. I'm quote, I'm air quoting loft area, which was open. So it was really just an area where you'd go up there. There was stairs. And then you look down into the living room area. This ups upstairs area became my room, except for he had a baby grand piano in this area. That was like this little lofty area. He got that grant, that baby grand piano into that room is probably because there's set a sliding glass doors in that. That area that went out to the roof of the building, which was a shared roof, which anybody in the building could come out and be on that roof looking straight into my locked area. So you have curtains. No, I couldn't afford that. So I had some like things that I draped over the wrought iron thing that separated me from the downstairs area, which was like, but it was still open. Like I'll totally open. So then I was like, where am I gonna put my stuff? So I put stuff on top of the grand piano. And then the area where I slept, I'd have to shimmy underneath the baby grand to an alcove that was Literally like, like this little area that would jet out from the wall and then right underneath would probably where normal people would put their shoes. Like it was like that an area. And I had a piece of foam that went underneath there. And I literally had to like, side, be horizontal to get into this area. And again, couldn't lift up my head. So even worse than the last place. I had just enough room. I had, I went to the whiz. I don't know. I don't know that's still in New York, but the whiz and I got a mini television that had a VCR built into it. So it was one of those little tiny things. So the alcove, just, it was just high enough just to get that mini television in there. So that's about as high as it was. And so I would, let me enter there and then sleep in my little alcove, like a. Like a vampire or something and then I'd come out and then there was like some other little alcovey shelf or something that I put my DVD player on but it was a very weird situation and he the guy that had the apartment like He had married this German woman to help her get a green card, and she rode the motorcycles in the sphere that was Ringling Brothers. They would travel around and she was in one of those, like cage round cages and she'd ride the motorcycles around and he was clearly gay and not really married to her. And then he took off and he was like renting all the spaces in the place and then we found out from the landlord that he had been keeping the rent money that we'd been paying him. He never paid the rent so we got kicked out and I had to find another place. And who else lived there? They're at that time there was about three or four other people living in that small space. Yeah. And I'm just curious, in your little alcove, what would people get up on the roof and be like peering in? Did you like, sometimes I'd be like in my little alcove and I could hear a party out there. I'm like, Oh, what's going on out there? And sometimes I knew people, I'd be like, Hey, oh my God. And this is my bedroom where I sleep. Yeah. Yeah. People would be like, you're in there, and it's New York though. You never know. Man, when I was shopping around for a place, okay, so these are the good places I found. And. You see a lot of weird living situations when you, man I saw one, one apartment and I remember thinking this would make me want to start drinking immediately. And I'm a pretty, I can be pretty frugal, but this was it felt horrific. Yeah. I'm so glad. And so you saw some bad ones too. Oh, yeah. And then just, funny things where it's like you go over to someone's house and they're like, you're now you're in their situation. And okay, back then, there's no internet. So this was all stuff that you would find in the village voice. So you'd have to pay money to call them. And so it's okay, you're already investing. 50 cents to make a phone call into this, hoping they're going to answer the phone. And then you get this person, it's you're just walking into a situation that you have no idea. There was no social media. You couldn't look this person up, you're in there. So I remember this one place that was like, just junk everywhere and stuff like moving and I was like, Oh, what is all this? He's I'm a kinetic artist. It's it looks like you need like a, like an actual like art studio. Like he had kinetic art everywhere. It's just like stuff moving around and. Oh my God. And that's one thing I. Auditioning, you're running around New York City and you would go up into these buildings. And I used to think, this is such an adventure. And every once in a while, a casting director would be having a casting from their own apartment. And so they would have blocked off parts of it or, and, and you just saw so many fascinating apartments. And I got to go into a couple of really fancy places, but yeah, you just saw it all, but I love your, I had I was doing, I did stage managing for like a modern dance show and we were rehearsing. in this space in Chinatown. It was so cool. It was like, just straight out of a movie, like a loft apartment and this woman, it was a dance studio where this woman like lived above and she lived in this like loft space, but it had light and everything. But every time someone wanted to come in, we'd have to throw the keys down out of the window. It's Ride one of the creepy elevator with the thing that went across, it's like straight out of single white female or something. Yeah. Yeah. I, and I knew this other woman who had this beautiful loft and she'd had it since the seventies. So the rent was, it was just it's amazing. If you get there at the right time. Okay. I love all this. And heather, what do you think? How do we relate this back to a business lesson for our entrepreneurs? What is your, because I have things I want to say, but what would you say? Sometimes you're just going to have to roll up your sleeves and just deal with the situation at hand and be scrappy about it because, some, if you're starting a business, you may not have all the funds to do all the things that you want to do. So you have to find solutions that are low cost that, that work, and kind of test things out is this what I want? This is not what I want. That sort of thing. And, as I'm leaning in towards trying to figure out like a new business venture for myself I'm out there rolling up my sleeves again trying different things, not spending too much money on it. And testing it out. And then, Oh, maybe that wasn't for me. Maybe that's not right. Try something else and move on. I love that. I love that. And I think, what I'm hearing in all of our stories is a willingness, curiosity, willing to be uncomfortable again and again. And I know for me, a lot of my suffering, you 20, right? So somewhat to my suffering was because I was attached to the result. I wanted the result. And. And so I really, again and again, I get the lesson of when I do my spiritual practices, I am more open to having experiences and miracles can happen in that space, possibilities can happen in that space instead of but this is what I want, so it's like learning to be intentional and then letting go and then taking the action but then letting go because that's one thing that I learned a lot in New York and I, in hindsight, I wish I'd had the space that you have and Will Ferrell has, it's not too late. I still will always be pursuing comedy and acting cause I love it, even if I'm not totally focused on it now. But thank you so much for your, your fabulous stories, Heather. And you've had such an interesting career and I. I have another short story. Okay. Okay. I was working in fashion design and then I got laid off and I'm like, okay, what am I going to do? And I've always had a curiosity about nightclub culture. And I found out about a nightclub that was opening, turned out it was a gentleman's club and a quote unquote gentleman's club. Okay. And here I am, only a, like a total goth chick, and it turns out our uniform, I was gonna be a waitress there, I should, I never had waited tables there before. Oh no. We used to wear white lace, it was called solid gold. And they put us through training. Turns out it was owned by some high up mob families. Didn't know that they never really got there. They bought the business from another like strip club or whatever, and they never really got their liquor license. So one day we show up and there's locks on the doors and all of that, but. I did have some very fun experiences while it was around. Anthony Michael Hall would always come in on Sundays and Sundays were slow. So I was, I like to work on Sundays cause sometimes I was the only waitress there on Sundays. And then David Lee Roth was always like closing the place. Like he would like, And at four o'clock in the morning, we all had to like line up in our stupid lace outfits and with our tray out and the drunk people would come out and tip us or whatever but it was very funny because all, what I found out was like the dancers, like they had to work it, like they had to sell themselves and, because Guys want to buy them drinks and that's, you're pushing drinks pushing drinks. And they didn't want to get drunk or something, so they'd have to dispose of the drinks. So you'd have to bring them drinks. So we had the champagne area and we'd be like putting champagne into the. into the planters and like all kinds of craziness like that. And then they had to buy golden dollars or something. And so like oftentimes at the end of night, you'd find golden dollars. And I found so much money like left in different places and, but until the place was closed down. But so you never know when you pivot to try something else, you just never know what the world may send you. It may, maybe a gentleman's club. And. Which was very fun, but nothing I would ever want to do again, but I got some good stories from it. You did. You definitely did. And if people want to know more about how to find you and come to your events and stuff, where should they go? Okay. They can find me on YouTube at Savvy Frugal Vegan, or you can go to my website, Savvy Frugal Vegan. com. Awesome. And thank you so much. You're a great storyteller. You have great pitch. You have great vocal variety. You're captivating. I'm always on the edge of my seat. You tell it. You're in the moment and you're sharing it with us. You're not just talking it. And so even though some of these stories I've heard before, I was still on the edge of my seat, and that's a beautiful thing that we want to do as storytellers, is make it special every time. And it's okay if it comes out a little different. And you are just a magical person. Beautiful woman. And I'm so honored to have gotten to work with you and thank you so much for sharing your genius and your art with us. And I hope that everybody got a lot out of this. I know I have had a blast today, so thanks so much, everybody. See you on the screen or the stage.