The city of Coral Gables wants to terminate the lease with Fritz & Franz Bierhaus — a German restaurant that has become very popular, especially for soccer games — but has given the owner three weeks to come up with a proposal at market value rent so he can stay.
This is the restaurant where both Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez waited to hear that FIFA had chosen Miami as a location for the 2026 World Cup.
Led by Commissioner Ariel Fernandez, the commission voted unanimously Tuesday on the short reprieve, but not before city staffers and Mayor Vince Lago ripped the restaurant’s owner and operator about the performance on the current lease and what they say is a lack of maintenance.
“You have a 25-year old restaurant that has 25-year-old equipment that is over the end of its life cycle,” said Zeida Sardiñas, the city’s asset manager, who wouldn’t answer questions from Commissioner Melissa Castro about the specific things that need to be updated or fixed.
“There are things that need to be done, but again it’s something that the tenant has to come up with,” Sardiñas said.
That seems odd. Ladra is certain that the RFP that is allegedly almost ready, just needing the “finishing touches,” has more specifics on what a future tenant must do or maintain. If not, it should. Because maybe that’s why we are here in the first place.
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The city informed the owner of Fritz & Franz on Sept. 27 that it was going to terminate the lease, Sardiñas told the commission. This was less than 60 days after they had asked Aug. 3 for a proposal on the renewal that would include proposed tenant improvements to address the maintenance issues.
“Because the city did not receive a response, the city sent Satchmo’s/Fritz & Franz a letter of non-renewal and advised Satchmo’s/Fritz & Franz that the city would be holding a competitive request for proposal process and that the tenant was welcome to participate in that process,” says part of the online “comprehensive history” that the city has dedicated a full page to on its website.
It totally reads like a case for termination.
Sardiñas repeated some of the information at the commission meeting.
“Fritz & Franz gas been a city tenant since 1999 and during that time they have repeatedly failed to meet their financial obligations and maintenance responsibilities as required by their lease,” she said.
“Over the years, the city has had to take repeated legal action and has also had to write off over $240,000 in unpaid rent for Fritz & Franz, who at one point went as long as seven years without paying percentage rent,” Sardiñas said. “In addition, the city has also had to provide Fritz & Franz with payment plans at different times for an additional $93,000, to pay back unpaid rent.”
In 2019, the city and the restaurant fought over garbage fees and special events fees, she said. Inspections have revealed repeated maintenance issues and “safety hazards.”
When owner Harald Neuweg stood up to speak, he talked passionately about how he had come to the U.S. with $50 in his pocket and now operates a real family business where the regulars know the staff and each other. “Why do you want to destroy a 20-year-old family restaurant?
“Family. This is what we’ve become over 20 years at Fritz and Franz Bierhaus,” Neuweg said. “Not just employees, but also our faithful customers, and a lot of them are now friends.”
He said there were no code enforcement violations, no health code violations, and that the maintenance issues were superficial. “It’s nothing. It’s minor. It’s cracks in the floor,” Neuweg said. “In front of the mayor’s office there’s a crack in the floor. Okay, if you fix yours, I fix mine.”
He said Sardiñas purposely scheduled a market rate appraisal of the property on Tuesday, “the day when she knows we were all going to be in the city of Coral Gables fighting for our restaurant.
“It’s vindictive. It’s trying to keep me away from City Hall. They almost got me.”
He also said that he hired an electrical company to fix everything that was noted by the fire department, even though Sardiñas said she checked the records and no permits were pulled for repairs. “If they didn’t pull a permit, then it’s on them, not me. Because we did pay the bill. There is nothing wrong or the fire inspector would have said, ‘Okay, you have to fix this.’
“How many restaurants are there in Coral Gables where the owner is actually there, you’re going to meet the owner or the owner is in the kitchen? I don’t think there are too many left,” he said, his family in the audience and a bunch of people with red and white t-shits that said “Keep Fritz and Franz.”
Several spoke in support of the restaurant.
Some in the City Beautiful feel that the city had no intention to negotiate in good faith because someone (read: Mayor Vince Lago) wants to open it up to friends who would build a high-end restaurant. That’s the rumor, anyway. There’s also rumors that the Neuweg has talked to realtors about selling the restaurant, with an assumable lease, which was advertised for sale for $2.4 million in 2022.
Neuweg insisted at the meeting that they are not talking to any realtors or selling the business. Not right now, anyway.
A public, competitive process would be ideal under most circumstances. But Fritz and Franz has two five-year renewal options in its contract that the owner wants to use. Lago wants everyone to see that the message sent is that the city will accept sub-standard leases. But the message being sent is that the city doesn’t abide by its own obligations.
“My issue is the process. I haven’t reviewed the terms,” Fernandez said. “I believe we failed on this process again.”
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He brought up the other city leases that have been bungled: Le Parc, the Country Club, Burger Bob’s.
“It has looked bad on the city every single time we have had an issue with a tenant the last few years,” Fernandez said. “And now we’re mishandling Fritz and Franz. We didn’t learn from the first three, and we’re at number four.”
What followed was an ugly spar with the city manager that should not have happened and looked bad for both of them.
In the end, the commission voted unanimously to give the restaurant three more weeks and directed the city to negotiate a new lease extension at market rates. Commissioner Kirk Menendez asked why the city didn’t put its foot down sooner. But Ladra is not sure how the city and Neuweg are going to resolve the differences when the city seems so intent on going to an RFP process.
Mayor Lago said the commission was asking staff “to do something that is impossible,” and that Neuweg was not going to invest the necessary funds in the property for only a five year extension.
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“We can discuss this ’til the cows come home but it’s very clear that we followed the contract and we’re within our terms,” Lago said. “If I had a tenant who owed me $240,000 in back rent, that hadn’t made maintenance to a city asset, which belongs to the residents, wouldn’t be very happy and he wouldn’t be in good standing with me.”
And City Manager Peter Iglesias said he was going to do whatever he wanted anyway.
“We are a fiduciary for the city,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, this is not going to happen. If the commission wishes for that to happen, the commission can go ahead and do it.”
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