Gus the hot dog man was a staple on South Street since 1978. Then, he walked away.

Gus, the hot dog man, was tired.

For 45 years, he worked his lunch cart at Fifth and South, selling hot dogs, soft pretzels, kielbasa, and meatball sandwiches to a daily rush of regulars, his familiar yellow sign announcing what he had long ago become: A South Street Tradition.

Along an iconic strip where the only constant is change, Gus remained an unchanging presence. Everyone knew Gus, and Gus knew everyone. But one day in October, without notice or fanfare, Gus closed down his cart one last time and drove away. Just like that, he was gone.

“I felt tired, ” said Gus, a private man from Greece in his 70s, who’d rather his last name not be published. “I worked for 45 years — I cannot work anymore.”

He didn’t tell anyone because he didn’t want to make a fuss, he said.

“Everything comes to an end,” he said.

His customers are not letting Gus walk away unnoticed. Hundreds have signed a change.org petition to rename the southeast corner of Fifth and South in his honor. They want to call it: “Gus’ Corner.”

Many posted about how Gus sustained them (“Gus kept me alive with his food in my 20s!” wrote one. “Long live Gus and his corner!”).

Steve Ramm, a music and culture journalist and longtime neighborhood resident who started the petition, said he plans on talking to business owners about bringing the signatures to City Council. Other ideas could include a mural or sign, he said.

“He was iconic,” Ramm said.

The South Street Headhouse District, the private organization that oversees the corridor, is also honoring Gus. They’re planning a farewell party so the street can offer a proper goodbye.

“Gus was an institution,” said Dana Feinberg, a program manager for the district. “His absence is felt. There’s not a day that passes since he left without someone asking me, ‘Where did Gus go?’ ”

That was the question many on South Street asked Oct. 23, when they saw Gus’ empty corner. Gus never missed a day. Rain or shine, Gus worked through breakfast and lunch, serving his food with a smile and often a few words on the Birds or Phillies.

The day he didn’t show, Gus’ family posted the news on Facebook.

“It’s with mixed feelings that Gus made the decision to retire over the weekend,” they wrote, thanking customers. “Now, hopefully, he can figure out what ‘relax’ means.”

Opening his cart in 1978, Gus quickly became a staple on the street. He was grandfathered in when street vendors were banned from South Street in the 1990s. South Street endlessly remade itself, and businesses came and went. But there was Gus.

“He never stood out — he was a very humble person,” said David Auspitz, former owner of the Famous 4th Street Deli at Bainbridge Street. “But you knew Gus was on the corner; you knew he was always going to be there.”

Over the years, his cart became a go-to spot for generations of neighborhood kids, restaurant workers, and nearby business owners. He fed the homeless on the street from his cart and offered tabs to customers who couldn’t pay. People came to Gus’ cart for the food and conversation, they said.

“Gus was the best,” said Adam Proctor, manager of nearby Philly AIDS Thrift. “When we were here working and just hitting a wall, and like, ‘I’m starving, where do I go?’ You always ended up at Gus.’ ”

In recent months, Gus had been dropping hints.

“He was saying he was getting a little tired,” said Howard Whitaker, who works just down the street at J Brite cleaners and was a morning regular at the cart.

“One day, I came, and he was gone,” he said.

He will miss his corner, Gus said. And the people who came to it.

“After so many years, it was like my family there,” he said of his South Street customers. “I love them.”