Non-service of food at restaurant

OK, had some sims go out for dinner in a casual group to Crypt O'Night Club
in the Maxis made Downtown. They order food, the waiter comes over with the
big silver dish, does a flourish as she presents... absolutely nothing! My
sim and her companions continue chatting and sipping water while the waiter
goes off to serve more deserving customers who seem to be getting their
food. And so my sim and her companions continue getting ever more hungry and
thinking that the damn water is doing nothing to satiate them. So they call
the waiter over to order again. Rinse and repeat with the flourish and
dispapearing food while the sims continue to plummet towards hunger
desparation. And the bill just keeps on climbing every time they order their
non-existent food.

I think my most recent problems are a result of the new patch or something.
Never had these problems before (like the reluctant shuttered windows and
disappearing food), then did yet another clean install, patched with the new
patch and hey presto I'm having problems! Unless it's the telephone hack
(Maxon, you pointed me to it so it's whatever you use) or a new download...
Most recently I downloaded a bunch of walls and floors from Marina's Sims 2,
which was recommended either here or over in binaries a couple of months ago
for Victorian themed home stuff and I think some more walls and floors from
MTS2 (I think it was from there, it was the "recovered Maxis" ones or
whatever they're called). Anyone else have problems due to Marina's stuff or
those "Maxis recovered" walls and floors? I might take out all the downloads
and see if my shuttered windows start cooperating and/or my sims get served
in restaurants. As I haven't really played any of the families since the
clean install I'm quite willing to do yet another clean install and this
time only patch with the old patch if people think this is the best thing to
do in this situation...

I've had the problem of no food being served as well.
It's happened after someone died in a kitchen fire in the place, and
somehow screwed up the lot, as the cook just stirs and stirs but never
finishes food. (The camera angle is always messed up there due to it
zooming in on the fire etc. A sim died on that lot but no grave/urn was
ever found and I'm not sure why. He died when the cook somehow started
a fire and he was trapped in it. The fire dept couldn't help because
his car was out front.)
Another time, it was because I went in and tried to fix the place up
etc, and forgot to leave proper counters and work areas for the cook
etc.
So maybe go into it and give the cook more room to prepare and set
meals?