Chris Sorensen, the co-founder of Firehouse Subs, has died at 65. His death marks the loss of one of the two brothers who turned a Jacksonville idea into a restaurant chain that later sold for one billion dollars.
Sorensen’s path to the business did not begin in a kitchen. Before the restaurant industry, he was a professional guitarist who sat in with Huey Lewis and the News, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Foreigner and Earth, Wind & Fire. He later followed in the footsteps of his father, Robert, and became a firefighter, spending 10 years as an engineer and EMT at the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department.
That background shaped the chain he built with his younger brother, Robin. In 1994, the two opened the first Firehouse Subs location in Jacksonville with less than $100 in their checking accounts. What began as a single shop grew under Sorensen’s creative eye, with each location getting a custom mural tied to fire and police service in its own town, while he served as the chain’s unofficial archivist.
The scale of what followed gave that origin story its weight. In 2021, Firehouse Subs was sold to Restaurant Brands International for one billion dollars, and after the sale the chain grew to more than 1,200 locations. The business that started with almost nothing became a national brand, but the death of its co-founder leaves the question of how his role inside the company will be remembered now.
One of the chain’s most famous early moments still captures the brothers’ start-up reality. Robin Sorensen later recalled that they were so focused on the subs that they were not ready for the first order, which led to a long ticket time. That kind of makeshift beginning is part of why Chris Sorensen’s death matters beyond the restaurant business: he helped build a company from a firehouse sensibility, a musician’s instinct for showmanship and a family wager that few would have bet on at the start.
