Vanessa stationed her PR person on the curb outside Sinclair's during the next Monday's lunch rush: a phone on a tripod, a livestream going. Vanessa stood in the doorway in front of the brass plate that bore her father's name and addressed the camera:
"This plaza has history. It has standards. It has identity. We can't have just anyone setting up just anything just anywhere. This isn't about competition. This is about respecting what this block has earned."
She did not say Brianna's name. She did not have to.
Garrett joined the campaign by Wednesday. He filmed himself at his fry station slicing into a chicken thigh, sweat shining on his forearms for the camera.
"Don't accept knockoffs," he said. "Real chicken, real chef, real training."
The Sinclair's TikTok crossed 200,000 views overnight. The comments were ugly. Tony watched them on his phone outside Brianna's motel room and showed her one: "This neighborhood is for actual restaurants, not freeloaders."
She handed the phone back without reading further.
"You could film one bite of your sandwich, B. Her whole brand would—"
"No."
"B—"
"No. We cook. We don't perform."
She worked twelve-hour days. She did not respond once. The line at her cart grew longer; the line at Sinclair's shrank. By the end of that week, the marble dining room was at 30% capacity at noon. Vanessa stopped sleeping.
The third humiliation came on a Friday, one week before the food festival the city had been promoting for three months.