Alexander Ringleb

So nice to meet you! First off, what’s your name? Tell our readers a bit about yourself—where you’re from originally and where you live now.

My name is Alexander Ringleb, and Miami has been my home since the early 2000s. I was born in Bochum, Germany, and my mother is from Stegersbach in Austria, where at eleven years old I was already working in my aunt's restaurant. I have been in hospitality ever since, more than forty years now, and most of them right here. Today I am the founder and owner of Burgermeister Miami in South Beach and Brickell, and the Managing Partner of The Office in Delray Beach.

What people come to me for is the local side of things. I know which streets are changing, which neighborhoods will embrace a new place and which ones will ignore it, and who you need to know to get a restaurant open in this city. I also talk about Miami on Instagram, in short videos about everyday life here, the good parts and the frustrating ones, the way someone who actually lives and works in this city sees it. And I speak German, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and French, which in Miami gets used every single day.

Tell us one thing you love about where you live now.

What I love most about Miami is that the whole world is here, and yet it still feels like a neighborhood once you are part of it. On any given night in one of our restaurants I move between four or five languages, and the same guests come back week after week and know our team by name. People arrive from everywhere to build something in this city, and Miami rewards the ones who stay, work hard and become part of the community.

Tell us a little more about what your company does and how it started. How does it help your customers?

Burgermeister Miami opened in May 2018 with a simple idea: a really good burger, made with care, in a place that feels like your neighborhood spot whether you live around the corner or landed that morning. Today you will find us in South Beach and Brickell. Before that I built my own concepts here, like Europa Deli and Vice Lounge, and worked in places like Casa Tua in Miami Beach and Balthazar in New York.

Alongside the restaurants, I spend more and more of my time with people who want to build a hospitality business in Miami. Some want to invest in a concept I run, some want me to open and operate a place for them, and some simply want honest advice before they sign a lease. Living in Miami and knowing how to do business here are two very different things, and the relationships I have built over the years with contractors, vendors and the city are often what decide whether a project ever opens.

If someone wants to start a business, what advice would you give them?

Spend time in the neighborhood before you spend money on it. Stand on the corner at lunch, on a Tuesday night and on a Saturday, and watch who actually walks by, because a concept that works beautifully in one part of Miami can struggle ten minutes away. Then find people who have really operated here. The surprises in this business come from permits, construction timelines, staffing and seasonality, and those lessons are much cheaper to learn from someone else's experience than from your own.

What is one piece of feedback from a happy customer or client that you won't forget?

We have more than 8,700 Google reviews at our South Beach location alone, so picking one is hard, but there is one I love from a guest named Justin. He wrote that we give you a warm towel to clean up when you finish, and then asked, "What burger joint does that? This one, that's who!" That is exactly what we are trying to do. Guests tell us all the time that we are friendly, that our prices are fair and that the place feels like Miami, but what they really feel is the care in the small details. You can come in for a fifteen-dollar cheeseburger and fries and still leave with a hot towel in your hands, and that little moment tells people we were thinking about them before they ever walked through the door.

Where do you see your company in the future?

For Burgermeister, I want to keep doing what we do well and keep earning the loyalty of the locals who made us their spot. Beyond that, I see myself working with more people from abroad and from across the US who want to build something lasting in Miami hospitality, and helping more independent concepts open in the neighborhood that truly fits them, with a team that knows what it is doing.

What is the biggest misconception about your industry?

That a great concept is enough. People see a full dining room and assume the hard part is the food or the design, but most restaurants that struggle do so because of the lease, the location, the build-out or the numbers behind the kitchen. The guest never sees that side of the business, and it is usually where it is won or lost.

What has been one of your biggest struggles building your business, and how did you deal with it?

Keeping our prices fair while everything around us keeps going up. Rent in Miami and food costs have climbed year after year, and the easy answer would have been to pass all of it on to our guests. We decided that a fair price is part of who we are, so we fight for it every day in the operation instead of on the menu.

The other struggle is in your head. We are self-funded, and when you look around and see people raising money and opening one place after another, it is easy to feel like you are falling behind. What helped me was to stop looking sideways, keep my focus on our guests and our team, and trust that steady growth you can pay for yourself is worth more than fast growth you cannot control.

Who was your favorite music artist and athlete growing up?

Bob Marley, without a doubt. His music became something much bigger for us during the pandemic, when nobody knew what was coming and those days were honestly dark. Every morning we put Three Little Birds on the sound system to get the day going, and we played it on repeat for days. It sounds simple, but that song carried our whole team through that time.

As for athletes, I grew up in Germany, so soccer was everything, and the name every kid knew was Pelé. Life has a sense of humor, because I ended up marrying a Brazilian. My wife Fernanda makes sure I never forget who the real king of football is, and in our house we have quietly agreed never to bring up the 2014 World Cup.

Any shoutouts you want to make?

To my wife and business partner Fernanda, who carries so much of the work people never see behind our restaurants. To our team at Burgermeister Miami, who make it happen every single day. And to the family behind The Office in Delray Beach, for inviting me to be part of what they have built over so many years.

Where can our readers learn more about you and your company?

You can find me at aringleb.com, on Instagram at @iamalexander.r, where I post my videos about life and business in Miami, and on LinkedIn. Burgermeister Miami is at burgermeistermiami.com, and The Office is at 201 East Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach.