Max Garcia remembers his downtown neighborhood as it was in the mid-1940s and before.

He tells about stealing apples from an orchard and watching cattle graze near the Acequia Madre, which kept the orchards fertile. And he remembers when Frank Ortiz, Santa Fe mayor from 1948 to 1952, built his three-bedroom home on the northwest corner of Paseo de Peralta and Galisteo Street in 1944.

Garcia, 82, still crosses the street to 526 Galisteo from the house he was born in, but not to pluck apples from trees. Now it's to help, however he can, chef Martin and Jennifer Rios turn Ortiz's house into their own restaurant, Restaurant Martin.

Some days Garcia, a retired accountant, will help Martin Rios lay landscaping along the new front of the building; other days he will simply offer encouragement.

"He's our honorary construction foreman," Jennifer Rios said.

The Rioses this year purchased the property, which in its most recent reincarnation was the home for 11 years of the funky Cafe Oasis, known for its late hippie-era decor — mushroom-shaped tables. a "bunk-bed room" and if you ask the neighbors, revelry into the wee hours. The menu tended toward the vegetarian and Mediterranean. It's motto: "An oasis in the desert of life."

Until the Rioses began remodeling this year, the building had undergone few substantive changes since Frank Ortiz lived there. Cafe Oasis used the house's rooms as theme rooms including the Victorian Room (with its silk-draped lamps and colorful pillows cast about) and the Wonderland Room (with, according to online customer reviews, mushrooms painted on the walls and bunkbeds altered to create a second-floor for dining).

The Rioses, who plan to open in late August or early September, have already torn down the walls that had created the rooms.

"We are trying to reinvent it in our own style," said Jennifer Rios. "It was a jungle in here. Our vision is for a clean and simple decor."

The exterior will be less white than it is now, but because the building has been designated an historic structure, it must remain a color that it has been in the past.

The Rioses are adding about 850 square feet to the 1,600- to 1,700-square-foot structure, which will be used to enlarge the kitchen. Rios said he expects to employ 20 to 25 people in the restaurant, which will seat 78 inside and about 100 in an open-air patio.

From their architect, Christopher Purvis, the Rioses are getting some inside help on meeting the array of city requirements for restoring historic buildings. Purvis is a former chairman of the city's Historic Design Review Board.

"He knows his way through all the bureaucratic paperwork," Jennifer Rios said.

Martin Rios said he is "overwhelmed but excited to be a part of the history of the building." Over the years, the building was also home to The Waiters' Club and Pegasus Antiques.

The Rioses said they plan to take advantage of the natural interior lighting of the building.

"We will have a very bright interior," she said. "The lighting will work for lunch and we can dim the lights for dinner."

They have ordered bamboo butcher- block tables. "They are tables you can put the food on. You don't need white tablecloths to cover it."

Rios is generally considered one of New Mexico's best fine-dining chefs. In April 2008 he was featured in a cooking competition with New York chef Bobby Flay on the Food Network's Iron Chef series.

His résumé includes executive chef positions at the Old House at the Eldorado Hotel, the Inn at the Anasazi and, most recently, Geronimo on Canyon Road.

"Martin has always been known as a white-linen-tablecloth type of chef," Jennifer Rios said. Restaurant Martin she said, will be much less pricey, making Rios' culinary creations "more accessible" to the Santa Fe community.

She said the cuisine will change seasonally with "creative and innovative dishes but at a lower price point."

Dinner entrees will begin at $16 for a vegetarian pasta, rise into the $20-to-$26 range with such dishes as roasted New Mexico organic chicken and the mustard custard ahi tuna, and will top out at $28 and $29 for the diver sea scallops and the prime beef rib-eye steak. Brunch and lunch prices will begin at $7 for smoked eggplant and tomato soup with Mexican prawn croquettes and lemon crema.

Dinner will be served from 5:30 to 10 p.m. seven nights a week, with a brunch offered from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday.