by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
When the last stack of meat and cheese is pulled out of the steamer on West Adams Street Saturday afternoon it will be the end of Firehouse Subs’ Downtown location.
The restaurant opened in January 2002 and was the first street-level tenant when the new Police & Fire Pension Fund Building opened. Since then, midday business during the week has been brisk, often with a line forming at the counter long before the lunch hour officially began. Evening and weekend sales were soft, however, prompting the decision to lock the doors for the last time.
“We applaud their courage in joining us as Downtown pioneers and hanging in there for six years,” said John Keane, executive director and administrator of the Police & Fire Pension Fund.
“When we opened and they moved in, The Carling was empty and so was 11 E. Forsyth. Firehouse Subs helped stabilize the rebirth of Downtown.”
The Adams Street location was one of 291 restaurants chain-wide and 29 in the area and a company-owned unit.
“It was just not the right location,” said Robin Sorensen, who founded the company in 1994 with his brother, Chris.
“We were about a block out of the traffic flow. When we opened, we understood a lot of things were going to happen on that block. But they didn’t happen fast enough,” he added.
Sorenson also said while it’s always a difficult decision to close a unit, it doesn’t happen very often.
“In 13 years, we have opened 300 stores in 14 states and we’ve only had to close 10. The company also owned the only other location in a Downtown in Little Rock, (Ark.) and we had to close that one too a couple of years ago. Nights and weekends account for half of the total business at a unit. When we look at a location now, it has to have at least 20,000 people in a three-mile radius. We probably have that in Downtown Jacksonville for lunch, but they need to be around for dinner and on the weekends, too.”
The six employees will be transferred to other stores in the area, according to Sorensen.
Keane also said having Firehouse Subs as a tenant “Was a great tie-in because one of the founders of the company, Chris Sorensen, is a retired firefighter who gets a pension check every month and so is his father, Rob, who is a retired Fire Captain.
“We hope some day they will return to Downtown,” he said.