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.
On the menu, Litehouse leans into a meal-prep lineup with more than two dozen options under 400 calories, built around grass-fed steak, wild-caught salmon and plant-based items, according to a Litehouse Whole Food Grill Facebook post. The Frisco location also offers specialty lemonades, teas and bottled sodas alongside its food menu, per Community Impact's report.
Riding a Bigger Wave of Healthy Fast-Casual Growth
Litehouse's arrival fits into a much larger shift in how Americans eat on the go. The global healthy fast-casual market was valued at $92.4 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 8.8% from 2026 through 2034, according to Market Intelo. Research published in March 2026 by Penn State Extension found that rising use of GLP-1 weight-loss medications is shifting household dining habits, pushing spending away from traditional fast food and toward high-protein, nutrient-dense fast-casual meals.
Those industry tailwinds arrive alongside real financial pressure on operators. Labor costs now average 36.5% of revenue for fast-casual restaurants, with combined food and labor expenses eating up nearly 70% of total operating budgets in 2026, according to Breadless. That margin squeeze is pushing many operators toward leaner, more streamlined kitchen models to stay profitable.
Part of a Broader Frisco Dining Boom
Litehouse's opening also lands amid a steady wave of out-of-state dining expansions into Frisco through 2025 and 2026, joining Chicago-based Portillo's and regional fast-casual concepts like Bread Zeppelin, according to local real estate commentary from Asha Rani. Hoodline has tracked that same trend recently, from a $225 million Indian food empire's Frisco debut to the closure of a longtime hibachi grill after 23 years on Preston Road. North Texas suburbs like Frisco continue to draw expanding food concepts from major metropolitan markets, and Litehouse's faith-based, community-rooted model marks a distinct entry in that ongoing shift.
