JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Chris Sorensen, the former Jacksonville firefighter who turned a Mandarin sandwich shop into one of the best-known restaurant brands in the country, has died. He was 65, and his family said he died on Oct. 11 at his home.
Before the restaurants, Sorensen spent more than a decade on the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department as an engineer and EMT. He had also worked with the Brevard County Fire Department and the fire and rescue crew at Jacksonville International Airport. Firefighting ran in the family. His father, Robert Sorensen, retired as a captain after 43 years with the city department and was known around the stations as Captain Video.
Sorensen and his brother Robin, also a firefighter, opened the first Firehouse Subs in Mandarin in 1994. The chain spread first across Jacksonville and then nationwide. By 2021 it counted about 1,200 restaurants, and the brothers sold it that year to Restaurant Brands International in a cash deal valued at $1 billion.
Sorensen often said the work he was proudest of was the Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation, which he helped start in 2005. The foundation has handed out more than $118 million in grants to about 7,700 fire, police and rescue departments in the United States and Canada, paying for equipment and training that many smaller agencies could not otherwise afford.
Outside the fire service, Sorensen was a working guitarist earlier in life and sat in with well-known touring bands. He was born in Jacksonville on Oct. 16, 1960, and lived in St. Johns County for the last 30 years. His survivors include his wife, Kirsten, along with children and grandchildren. His sister, Cecily Sorensen, spent years as a communications executive for the chain.
Family and friends will gather to celebrate his life Friday, Oct. 23. The 10 a.m. service will be held in St. Johns County at Eleven22, a church off Longleaf Pine Parkway. Rather than send flowers, mourners can give to the public safety foundation he started or to a motor speech program named for Eric Sorensen at Brooks Rehabilitation.
Section: More Jacksonville FL crime news
Filed under: Jacksonville FL Public Safety News
