A new fast-casual restaurant has opened at 11501 Custer Road in Frisco, and it comes with an operating rhythm unlike almost anything else on the strip: the doors shut every Friday at sunset and stay closed until this evening. Litehouse Whole Food Grill opened its Frisco location on June 21, serving balanced bowls, wraps, grilled options, pasta dishes, tacos, stir-fry bowls and flatbread pizzas built around fresh ingredients.
The Frisco shop, located in Suite 109 of Custer Plaza, is the third Litehouse restaurant, joining locations in Illinois and Indiana, according to Community Impact. Founder Erik Nance started the concept in 2013 in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, and the outlet reports that he wanted to create a place where everyone could enjoy healthy and flavorful meals for his family, according to the business website.
A Sabbath-Driven Business Model
Nance’s approach to running Litehouse is shaped directly by his faith. He is a Seventh-day Adventist minister, and per South Side Weekly, he closes every Litehouse location from Friday sunset through Saturday sunset to observe the Sabbath, while also keeping pork and shellfish off the menu in line with his religious dietary principles. It’s an unusual operational choice for a fast-casual concept competing in a corridor built around convenience and long hours.
That faith-driven ethos has also shaped how Nance runs his business beyond the menu and the clock. In Chicago, his restaurants built a daily practice of giving away 20 to 30 free meals to people experiencing food insecurity, alongside a second-chance hiring policy, according to UChicago Civic Engagement. Nance launched that model in Hyde Park before expanding it to other markets, and whether those community programs will extend to the Frisco location remains an open question.
A Chicago Restaurateur With a Bigger Portfolio
Litehouse is only one piece of Nance’s dining footprint. He has also built Mikkey’s Retro Grill, The Soul Shack, and the plant-based eatery Can’t Believe It’s Not Meat, expanding his concepts across Chicago and into Atlanta, according to an Apple Podcasts interview. Litehouse itself had already pushed beyond Illinois before reaching Texas, establishing an out-of-state branch at 1403 S. Lake Park Ave in Hobart, Indiana, according to Litehouse Whole Food Grill’s Northwest Indiana location.
Landing in a Busy Frisco Retail Corridor
The Frisco restaurant sits inside Custer Plaza, a retail strip in a high-traffic Collin County corridor anchored by H-E-B, Kroger Marketplace and Texas Family Fitness, according to The Retail Connection. Custer Road functions as a key six-lane thoroughfare linking Frisco and McKinney, putting the new grill in front of steady daily traffic from shoppers and gym-goers alike…