Chris Sorensen

Chris Randall Sorensen was born on 16 October 1960 in Jacksonville, Florida, to Robert and Wanda Sorensen. His father, Robert, served 43 years with the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department. His parents also owned San Jose Television, an independent television retail business in Jacksonville, which his family said first sparked his interest in running a business.

He grew up in Northeast Florida and spent most of his life there. His earliest ambition was to be a professional musician. He was a gifted guitarist and played several other instruments, and he worked successfully as a musician for several years before changing course.

Music came first. According to his family, his playing led to chances to sit in with bands including Earth, Wind and Fire, Lonestar, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Huey Lewis and the News, and Foreigner, and he kept playing throughout his life.

He then followed his father into the fire service. He worked for four years with the Brevard County Fire Department and one year with the Jacksonville International Airport Fire and Rescue Department, then joined the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department, where he served for more than ten years as an engineer and emergency medical technician.

In 1994 he and his younger brother Robin, also a former firefighter, opened a sandwich restaurant of their own design in Jacksonville and called it Firehouse Subs. The first restaurant opened on 10 October 1994. A first attempt at franchising in 1995 was soon pulled back in favour of company-owned stores, before franchising resumed and drove the national expansion. Chris was the creative force behind the look and feel of the restaurants, with their fire station decor, firefighting memorabilia and custom murals, and he kept that role for as long as the brothers owned the brand. He was also its archivist, collecting and preserving the company's history.

Over 27 years the brothers grew Firehouse Subs to more than 1,200 restaurants with over $1 billion in annual system sales. In November 2021, Restaurant Brands International, the parent of Burger King, Popeyes and Tim Hortons, announced it would buy the chain for $1 billion, and the deal closed on 15 December 2021.

In 2005 he co-founded the Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation, which supports the equipment, training and life-saving work of first responders. By 2026 it had awarded more than $118 million in grants to about 7,700 departments in the United States and Canada. His family said he considered the Foundation his most meaningful public and professional achievement.

Sorensen lived for about 30 years in St. Johns, Florida. He was married for 43 years to Kirsten Sorensen, whom his family called his best friend. They had a son, Eric, and two daughters: Steffi Sorensen, a basketball player and ESPN commentator, and Brittany Cooney, who with her husband owns the Jacksonville area restaurants Ember and Iron and Gemma Fish + Oyster. He had six grandchildren, with two more expected at the time of his death.

Beyond music and business he was a talented artist and a keen student of history and science, especially archaeology, paleontology and the space program. He collected historical artifacts, loved classic films and could quote many lines by heart, and was known for a dry, quick wit that his family said he sharpened in the fire service.

Chris Sorensen died peacefully at his home on Sunday, 11 October 2026, with his family at his side. He was 65, five days short of his 66th birthday. His obituary, published by Hardage-Giddens Funeral Home on 16 October, described him as a cancer survivor, but no cause of death was made public. The Florida Times-Union reported his death on 17 October 2026.

A celebration of life was planned for Friday, 23 October 2026, at 10 am at The Church of Eleven22 in St. Johns, Florida, followed by a reception at Marywood Retreat and Conference Center. In place of flowers, the family asked for donations to the Eric Sorensen Motor Speech Program at Brooks Rehabilitation or to the Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation.

Sorensen helped take a single Jacksonville sandwich shop opened by two firefighters and turn it into one of the best known fast casual chains in North America, later sold for $1 billion and now trading in several countries beyond the United States. The firehouse look he designed, with a unique mural in every restaurant, remains part of the brand.

His most lasting public legacy is the Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation. Its grants, more than $118 million to about 7,700 departments, have strengthened the life-saving work of first responders across the United States and Canada. To the fire service community in Jacksonville he was also remembered as one of their own, a former engineer and EMT who never lost his ties to public safety.