Hello.
I don't think this issue is related to the problem that member "purenergy" does have whit the game so I start a new topic.
Now, the NPC chefs in my game do not stand around on the sidewalk but they seem to come in very late for work. My sims can order there food and then sit and wait for an hour before the chefs arrive and begin to work. The restaurant can be quite crowded by then... This is in my fullpatched laptop game. (The very unpatched desktop game don't have this issue). I also did discover that the actions for ordering food get stuck in the queue by the sims who do order food. It won't drop out again. I should try to delete the localthumbcache.package file and see if this helps. (An other problem that I do not have in the "old" pacthed game).