Chris Sorensen, Firehouse Subs Co-Founder and Former Jacksonville Firefighter, Dies at 65

Chris Sorensen, the former Jacksonville firefighter who co-founded Firehouse Subs with his younger brother Robin in a Mandarin strip mall in 1994 and helped grow it into a chain Restaurant Brands International bought for $1 billion, has died. He was 65.

Sorensen died peacefully at his home, surrounded by his family, on Sunday, Oct. 11, according to an obituary published Oct. 16 by Hardage-Giddens Funeral Home and reported by News4JAX and the Florida Times-Union. No cause of death was given in those reports. Jacksonville media began reporting his death on Oct. 17. Born in Jacksonville on Oct. 16, 1960, he died five days before what would have been his 66th birthday. He had lived in St. Johns County for about 30 years.

Guitarist, then firefighter

Before he ever put on turnout gear, Sorensen was a musician. He began playing guitar at age 9 and later played professionally, and as a solo guitarist he sat in with acts including Earth, Wind and Fire, Foreigner, Lonestar, Huey Lewis and the News, K.C. and the Sunshine Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd, according to his obituary as reported by the Times-Union.

When his band broke up at 21, his father, retired Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department Capt. Robert Sorensen, known as Rob, encouraged him to join the fire service. Action News Jax reported that his father served 43 years with JFRD.

Chris Sorensen spent four years as a firefighter in Brevard County and one year with the Jacksonville International Airport Fire and Rescue Department before joining JFRD, the Times-Union reported. There he worked mainly with Ladder Company No. 1 as an engineer and EMT for about a decade, before retiring to focus full time on the restaurant business.

Randy Wyse, a fellow veteran firefighter who led the Jacksonville Association of Fire Fighters, IAFF Local 122, for many years, met Sorensen at Fire Station 1 on Liberty Street downtown. Wyse told the Times-Union that "Chris was just a really great guy," and remembered him as low-key and devoted to music. He also recalled that the station doubled as a test kitchen, with Sorensen bringing in recipes and asking his crewmates to taste them.

From a Mandarin storefront to a national chain

Chris, then 34, and Robin, then 26, opened the first Firehouse Subs on Oct. 10, 1994, at Crown Point Plaza on San Jose Boulevard in Mandarin, according to the Times-Union and earlier accounts of the company's history. Both brothers had worked as firefighters and their father was a fire captain, and the shop was built around that fire service heritage.

Interviews the founders gave over the years describe a lean start. They had considered a brewpub before deciding it would cost too much, and they opened the sandwich shop with loans from family and friends. An early attempt at franchising in the mid-1990s was pulled back before the brothers expanded the model again.

Within the partnership, Chris focused on the look and feel of the restaurants: interior design, decor and atmosphere, including the hand-painted murals by artist Joe Puskas that became a signature of the stores, the Times-Union reported. In a 2017 interview with USA TODAY, he said he had "always loved food and the art of it."

Over the next 27 years, the chain grew to more than 1,200 locations and more than $1 billion in annual system sales, according to the obituary.

The $1 billion sale

In November 2021, Restaurant Brands International, the Canadian parent of Burger King, Popeyes and Tim Hortons, agreed to buy Firehouse Subs for $1 billion in cash. RBI said it completed the acquisition on Dec. 15, 2021. The company said at the time that Firehouse would be run as an independent brand, and it kept the chain's headquarters in Jacksonville.

RBI later reported total consideration slightly above $1 billion after post-closing adjustments, in its federal securities filings.

The brothers stayed involved with the company's charitable arm after the sale, according to the Times-Union.

A foundation born after Katrina

In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, the Sorensens delivered food to the affected region. That trip led them to establish the Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation the same year, a nonprofit that funds lifesaving equipment and other support for first responders.

The foundation has awarded more than $118 million in grants to about 7,700 departments in the U.S. and Canada, according to the obituary as reported by News4JAX. Action News Jax put the figure at more than $110 million. Sorensen considered the foundation the most meaningful achievement of his professional life, the obituary said.

Tributes from the company and colleagues

Mike Hancock, president of Firehouse Subs U.S. and Canada, told the Times-Union in an emailed statement that the Sorensen brothers built an iconic brand and left "a lasting legacy of giving back" to first responders and the communities they serve.

Wyse said it was sad to see his friend go so early. A post shared on Instagram and cited by Action News Jax said Jacksonville had lost "a true local legend" this week.

As of Sunday, The Florida Press had not found a public statement on Sorensen's death from JFRD or Jacksonville city officials.

Family

Sorensen is survived by his wife of 43 years, Kirsten; his son, Eric; his daughters, Steffi Sorensen, an ESPN commentator, and Brittany Cooney, who with her husband, Mike, owns the restaurants Ember and Iron and Gemma Fish and Oyster; his parents, Wanda Sorensen and Robert and Pam Sorensen; his siblings Lisa, Robin, Cecily and Chadwick; and six grandchildren, according to the obituary as reported by the Times-Union. His sister Cecily was a longtime communications executive at Firehouse Subs, Action News Jax reported.

Celebration of life

A celebration of life is scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday, Oct. 23, at The Church of Eleven22, 2101 Longleaf Pine Parkway in St. Johns, with a reception afterward at Marywood Retreat and Conference Center in St. Johns.

In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that donations go to the Eric Sorensen Motor Speech Program at Brooks Rehabilitation or to the Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation.

A Jacksonville legacy

Firehouse Subs remains headquartered in Jacksonville more than three decades after the first shop opened in Mandarin. For a city that has produced few national restaurant brands, the chain and its foundation's grants to fire and police departments are a lasting reminder of two firefighting brothers who turned a station-house cooking habit into a business. Chris Sorensen's role, as the people who worked beside him tell it, was as much about the look, the music and the giving as about the sandwiches.