WINFIELD TWP — The popular restaurant with the red caboose has closed permanently.

Cooper Station on Route 356 in Sarver was closed this week by owner Lora Cooper Rothen.

Rothen said on Wednesday that the restaurant hasn't turned a profit since she and her son re-opened it in 2014.

Rothen, who owns Du-Co Ceramics in Saxonburg, said a management team has been running the operation.

“I've had it listed for the last year hoping somebody would be interested in picking it up and continuing to run it,” Rothen said. “We just can't continue to invest in it.”

She said her father, the late Reldon Cooper, built the restaurant and ran it for a few years before it closed down around 2000.

Rothen then rented it out when it was Davidson's Restaurant, but that owner retired after 10 years.

“So, we decided to renovate it a little bit and sell it,” Rothen said.

Realtors told her that prospective buyers were afraid of the start-up costs associated with opening a restaurant, so the building sat vacant until 2014, when Rothen and her son decided to give the restaurant business a whirl.

Rothen said she will keep the liquor license for a few more years in hopes that someone buys the building and reopens the restaurant.

“We appreciate the patronage of the people who did come,” Rothen said. “I will miss it, but I just can't continue to do what we're doing.”