Thanks for all of the tips. I explored the Google drive option, but found it isn't trivial to create a desktop shortcut that will open an excel file in Excel from Google drive without installing their backup and sync software that is a heavier solution that what I'm looking for. (or using the web-based Google sheets). I like how Evernote seamlessly lets you open an Excel file and save changes to it directly to the note. I haven't come across any issues with file corruption yet.
I opted to create Classic Note Links (right-click note to get menu & hold option for classic link to open the note in the application rather than the web client) and created an automator script to run a /bin/bash script like so: 'open evernote:///view/1234...' (replacing 1234 with the classic note link). I tried to take it a step further and write a script that would open the excel file, but had no luck, but this works for now.