The aroma of fine dining and the sound of clinking wine glasses are expected to return to the Jacksonville Inn by early May.

The new establishment — The Restaurant at the Jacksonville Inn — will feature the culinary creations of chef Todd Meyerhofer, the original chef at Decant in Medford.

The cuisine will offer casual fine dining with seasonal specialties, and Meyerhofer said he plans to offer menu items that bring a little bit of Napa Valley to town while still solidly representing Southern Oregon agriculture.

In addition to a fine dining area, the bar and patio will feature a full bistro menu for lighter fare. Meyerhofer spent 24 years cooking in Napa Valley before moving to Southern Oregon two years ago to help get Decant up and running.

Miriam Barchi, Meyerhofer’s fiancé and restaurant sommelier — she and her family started Decant — will run the front of the house.

Some changes will be evident. The mostly red décor from the restaurant that served local diners for nearly a half-century will be brightened up. Red chairs, red carpet, red lamps and other red motif will go by the wayside, but the familiar rock wall in the basement, low-wood ceilings and Gold Rush-era items throughout the dining space and bar will remain.

On the ground level of the Jacksonville Inn, a Sotheby’s real estate office is moving in. ADLO Group, the partnership that owns the building, maintains the inn’s eight-room boutique hotel and wine bar. The former restaurant at the Jacksonville Inn closed Jan. 7.

Meyerhofer and his son-in-law and contractor, Randy Howard, spent part of this week with their sleeves rolled up, cleaning the dining space, removing the decades-old red carpeting and resurfacing tables.

They plan to cover the old red chairs and add soft-white twinkly lights. Meyerhofer said they hope to keep hints of the old familiar space while brightening things up just a little and making it their own.

Howard gestured to the old rock wall in the basement Friday and suggested gold could remain in some of the rock once pulled from Jacksonville Creek. Whether gold remains or not, whispers of past diners are certainly evident.

“We’ve been finding little rolled-up pieces of paper tucked into the bricks, with little sayings or notes that say certain families have eaten here,” Meyerhofer said.

Unrolling a thin piece of paper, he read, “Forgiveness is the scent of lavender when it’s crushed by the heel of a boot.”

Meyerhofer and Howard said they hope to pay homage to the history of the space while writing another chapter in the building’s legacy.

“Jerry (Evans, former owner) did 40 years here. Everyone loves him. He’s an institution,” he said.

“We wanted to change it up just a little bit but not erase it completely. There’s a lot of history here. We’ll have some continuation, but we want to get it ready to serve the community for the next couple of decades.”