After 24 years at the helm of Athens’s landmark ice cream joint, owner Jimmy Greenhaw was ready to pass the torch … well, in this case, the chocolate dip cone.

The Athens businessman has sold Kreme Delite to Josh Tarokh owner of Village Pizza on the downtown square.

“Sold it to him last Monday,” Greenhaw said Monday, his last night at the shop. “Some people were mad at me because I sold it to him instead of them, but he’s my bookkeeper.”

Greenhaw, 68, who owned Dub’s Burgers, another historic Athens restaurant, until 2007, says the responsibility was getting to be too much.

“I’m getting too old to take care of it,” he said, adding he now hopes to spend more time with his grandchildren.

Francis and Arleigh Phillips first built Kreme Delite in 1951. For 60 years, the art-deco building with its neon signs has anchored the same spot at the corner of West Washington and South Marion streets. The upside-down banana split, served in a cup, was the signature dish. It was a favorite of Greenhaw’s when he was a kid. Back then, the restaurant was one of the first venues for soft-serve ice cream in North Alabama, and it still sells only two flavors of ice cream — chocolate and vanilla, though customers can have the vanilla made into strawberry.

Patrons still will be able to buy their upside down banana splits, chocolate dip cones, milk shakes and chili dogs.

“He says he’s not planning to change much,” Greenhaw said of the new owner, who was traveling Monday and could not be reached for comment on the purchase.

“People used to try to get me to do this and do that — sell other flavors of ice cream or different kinds of sandwiches,” Greenhaw said. “But I’d say, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’”