The longtime home of one of Portland's most pioneering farm-to-table restaurants could soon become a drug store, according to a recent liquor license application.

Northwest Portland's Wildwood, which was opened by chef Cory Schreiber in 1994, was one of a handful of restaurants, including nearby Zefiro, to help shift Portland's culinary reputation from restaurant backwater to dining destination.

In 1995, Wildwood was named The Oregonian's Restaurant of the Year. Three years later, Schreiber took home the James Beard Award for Best Chef Northwest.

Meanwhile, the restaurant helped kick-start the careers of a half dozen well-known Portland chefs and general managers, including Nancy Hunt and Randy Goodman of Bar Avignon, Adam and Jackie Sappington of the Country Cat and Jenn Louis and David Welch of Lincoln.

The restaurant closed in 2014. Since then, the building, at 1221 N.W. 21st Ave., has sat vacant. Last month, Rite Aid filed a liquor license application for the space.

According to Tom Garnier, the building's owner, a few restaurant tenants expressed interest in the space after Wildwood closed, but nothing materialized. In an email, Garnier wrote that a lease has yet to be signed, but "Rite-Aid has put in some earnest effort in securing the building."

The news comes the same day that another prominent Portland restaurant, the Veritable Quandary, announced it would close.

-- Michael Russell