The longtime owner of Albany’s historic Carter’s Grill and Restaurant that was a popular gathering place for African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement has died.

Eddie Carter, who found success serving soul food in the city's downtown district for more than 50 years, died Wednesday at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, according to WALB News 10. He was 96.

Carter closed his restaurant in 2017, not long after his son Martin died, leaving the business without its only manager. With no one else to take over the reins, Carter, who was 94 at the time and using a walker to get around, made the painful decision to let it all go.

"It's time to sell," he said, according to a report by The Albany Herald. "I just can't do this anymore. I love this restaurant and don't really want to sell, but I know I must. We have raised up a lot of families here."

WALB reported in January that a local church purchased the property after it closed.

Founded in 1968, Carter’s once served meals to some of the nation’s top black leaders and became a crowd favorite in the heart of Albany, the Herald reports.

The menu included Southern favorites like ox tails, fish and grits, country fried steak, barbecue, chitterlings, smothered chicken, macaroni and cheese, collard greens, and peach cobbler.

Carter’s was the first black-owned restaurant to win a government contract to feed prisoners at the local jail, the Herald reported.

Before opening his restaurant, Carter served 24 years in the Navy and was a chief petty officer. After retiring from the military he took a chance in Albany when few other restaurants were on the scene. Through the years, he said he saw dozens more restaurants arrive, and Carter’s faded amid the newer, larger franchises.

“I wanted to open a restaurant and to serve the kind of food that black folks around here grew up on,” he told the Herald in 2017.

Despite being closed, the restaurant maintains a strong connection with the people who once ate there, many who say they hope to see Carter’s open again one day.

“Man, a lot of people miss it. A lot of people miss it. Me, myself, I hate it closed," Albany native, David Wright told WALB.

The restaurant still has a 4.5 rating on Yelp.

“I’ve travelled the country searching for fried chicken; Carter’s makes without a doubt the best fried chicken I’ve ever had,” one reviewer wrote in 2011.

Carter’s daughter told WALB that memorial services would be held soon at the Andersonville National Cemetery.