by Liz Daube
Staff Writer
Each year, Robin and Chris Sorensen spend about 60 days – almost a fifth of their lives – on the road. Their “Founders Tour” trips are important to the Firehouse Subs founders and brothers. Otherwise, Chris probably wouldn’t be along for the ride.
“He gets car sick,” said Robin.
To keep nausea at bay, Chris constantly perches near or sits in the driver’s seat.
“Sitting in the front helps,” he said. “You can see the road.”
Over the last 12 years, Firehouse Subs has grown from one fire station-themed sandwich shop in Mandarin to 230 locations in 11 states. The Sorensen brothers have visited many of those stores over the last four years. Monthly trips around the country help franchise managers build relationships with Chris and Robin, according to Cecily Sorensen, their sister and manager of corporate communications.
“It’s a big commitment on our part, but it’s part of our product,” said Chris. “This is a goodwill mission.”
The brothers take turns driving their 40-foot-long, fire engine red tour bus with their father and employees. Singer Garth Brooks’ nanny used to travel with his kids in the bus before the Sorensen brothers purchased it. The bus has four beds, two sitting areas, a dining table, a bathroom, a kitchenette, laptops with satellite Internet and GPS tracking and two TVs equipped with DVD players and satellite cable.
“We watch Food Network all day,” said Robin. “We’ve looked all over here to see if we could find any Garth memorabilia.”
Robin said other family members often tag along, including his children. The mother and grandfather abstain, however. Motion sickness runs in the family.
“Mom’s the same way (as Chris),” said Robin. “She doesn’t do highways.”
When it comes to driving the bus, the brothers don’t have a problem. They used to drive fire engines because both were Jacksonville fire fighters. They still carry fire extinguishers and emergency medical equipment on the bus, just in case they’re the first ones to arrive at the scene of an accident.
Some of their other drivers have lacked similar driving experience, and the bus has dents to show for it. A rookie employee accidentally ran over a 15-foot-long section of landscaping at a Starbucks.
“We didn’t know he was hitting it until he hit a landscaping rock,” said Robin. Cecily said the driver still gets teased for his accident.
“Somebody put a big rock on his desk,” she said.
Another employee narrowly missed Jacksonville’s Ladder 1 fire engine as the two vehicles passed each other.
“I’m looking at it (Ladder 1), and I’m thinking, I don’t want to yell at him because he’s liable to hit it,” said Robin. Instead of hitting the fire engine, the driver swiped a telephone pole – and lost the side rearview mirror.
In addition to family time, the trips allow the brothers to have lengthy business conversations that they prefer to keep private, Robin said
“They’re long days, needless to say,” said Robin. “We don’t work 15 hours a day. But for 14 and a half hours ... this is like a rolling board room. Strategic planning, who’s coming, who’s going, any issues, growth. Whatever it is, the entire company is discussed on this bus.”
One of the biggest advantages of the trips is getting to see their stores firsthand, Robin said. Firehouse has 25 franchise managers, so the brothers meet them one at a time and visit individual stores with them. Chris said that personally confirming the quality of a variety of locations reassures them that business is on the right track.
“You start getting a complaint from here and there, and you start thinking everything’s going to hell in a hand basket,” he said. “But it’s not.”
Maintaining control over the Firehouse chain is a priority for the brothers.
“Nobody in our system has more stores than we do,” said Chris. “That won’t change.”