The Nook owner Anthony Morel said he created the menu, which he describes as “country club comfort food,” by pulling recipes from his restaurant experience and using his grandmother’s recipe for their housemade pesto sauce and some Venezuelan dishes like arepas because his wife is Venezuelan.

Morel opened The Nook in Celina in June 2020 after moving to Light Farms.

On the menu

The Nook serves breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner.

Popular menu items include the brussel salad, which has a spicy chili dressing, and the Southwest salad featuring chipotle ranch dressing. Other top sellers include flatbreads and burgers.The menu also has kid friendly items such as chicken strips and corndog bites.


The backstory

When Morel chose to buy a house in Light Farms in Celina, he said one of the selling points was that the land developers, Republic Property Group, owned and operated Farm Stand, a restaurant, bar and market in the neighborhood. However, upon closer inspection, Morel, who has decades of restaurant industry experience, discovered there was room for improvement so he emailed the developers with a proposition.

“To whom it may concern, I’m in the restaurant business and live in the neighborhood,” Morel said he wrote in the email. “I pointed out a few faults like hours, inconsistency of food and staff turnover. I told them I’m looking for a project and I’d love to take it over.”

The developers responded that they were land developers, not restaurant people and they were losing money on this endeavor. After receiving Morel’s pitch, they agreed to lease the property to him, Morel said.


Morel signed the lease in November 2019 and started construction in early January 2020, which was supposed to take two months then, “the world started shutting down,” he said. On March 30, 2020, Morel, his wife and a cook started filling to-go orders and later on June 9, 2020 they were able to open the doors to the public

Quote of note

In addition to owning The Nook, Morel—who has worked in the industry since he was 16—also owns and operates Grafitti Pasta in Denton and Heyday in downtown Celina. He said he’s worked in everything from dive bars to five star restaurants.

“The thing about the service industry, you get into it because the money is quick and easy and usually you're going to school or you have other plans to do something else. I didn’t have that,” Morel said. “I just rode the wave until I mentally grew up and made the choice that this is my career, and if it's my career, I need to hang on.”