In play testing my restaurant, I did notice that the first couple to show up at the restaurant got seated outside, and those tables are also furthest away from my hosting station. However, the next couple was seated at a table inside, and there were 3 more empty tables outside, so I just chalked it up to randomness. I have an assortments of tables and booth seating throughout the restaurant, so my build would probably not be the best one to notice a problem in. I would be more interested to look at the routing issue with the front door vs. having to open up access via the kitchen. Is there maybe some programming in there that tries to keep the host from exiting the main entrance? I could see how with certain restaurant designs (like mine), it would look incredibly weird to have the host lead people right back out the door they just came through...
As for the seating prioritization, there might be some routing reasons behind why sims are prioritized first to chairs and then to booths. I had a situation where testing where I had a sim sitting in a booth seat and wanted another sim to sit by him. He was sitting at the outside portion (I had created my own version of a corner booth), and the other sim popped up with a thought bubble that he was being blocked by the guy. I manually had the guy move over, and then the other one was able to sit just fine, but it seems like they might not be programmed to move over automatically, the way they do on couches, etc. Maybe we can ask a guru...
