After a decade of food and games, the doors of the Highland Park Chatterbox Pub closed for good Sunday night.

“It’s been an emotional day,” said manager Steve Miller, who is married to owner Andrea Miller.

Raising four children ages 4 to 12 and running three restaurants had stretched the family too thin, he said.

Because of their busy lives, keeping the Highland Park restaurant, the largest of the three, open would have been possible only with a partner to help.

Although attempts had been made to find a partner, the couple ran out of time, Miller said.

In addition to the Highland Park location, the Millers own two other restaurants, one on France Avenue in Linden Hills and the first Chatterbox Pub on East 35th Street in Midtown, which was originally a speakeasy and has been open since 1923.

The couple has owned the Midtown restaurant for 16 years. Miller called it his “baby.”

Now, the couple hope to concentrate on improving the two smaller Minneapolis locations.

“Spreading ourselves thin meant we couldn’t run the other two restaurants the way we wanted to. It’s not good to our kids and not fair to our staff.”

But it still wasn’t easy to close down the Highland Park location.

“It’s unfortunate. It’s very sad. We love this community. We signed the papers for this location while we were in the hospital during the birth of our 10-year-old daughter,” he said.

The employees found out the restaurant was closing on Sunday.

Miller hopes enough people who frequented the Highland Park location come “across the river” so he can hire back the staff members.

According to the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, the two Minneapolis locations, owned by Andrea Miller under a corporation separate from the Highland Park location, filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September. According to court records there was some action taken on that bankruptcy case on Friday.

Subsequent calls to Miller later Sunday night were not returned.