Which expansion pack is the most worth getting

@elulu8  I have gone in and checked and the Lot Type on the penthouses and house in San Myshuno can be changed to a restaurant, but there is no option to change the Lot Type on an apartment... so you would not be able to make the apartments into restaurants. I should also mention, though, that there are additional business lots that you could change lot type on if you want to make any of them into a restaurant.

@elulu8 I went back in to confirm... It looks like on penthoused you can add floors upward up to a total of 4 floors/stories in the penthouse. The Old Salt House can be bulldozed and/or added to (floors/stories) like a regular home. I also have added basement(s) there. You cannot add floors/stories to apartments.

And you are very welcome. Have fun! 😊

@elulu8 Yes, I have Dine Out... I have all packs. 😁

A few things that are helpful to keep in mind as you run your restaurant:

• Your sim will be the manager of the restaurant, and it will run better if they're on-site. I oftentimes even take a couple of my Sims to the restaurant to manage things. The manager will have greeting and additional interactions that come up which will increase the quality of the customer's experience. As you do better, you earn more perks/points, and can hire additional staff or add other features or interactions that will enhance the restaurant's quality, efficiency, and customer experience.
• Start off slowly. Stay a bit behind what your staff is skilled for in work load and food offerings (skill needed to offer which items on the menu). Your staff will slowly increase in skills, and you can gradually enhance your offerings. Keep the menu a couple of tiers in skill below the least experienced cooks' skill level until they're top-notch. Your customers will be far more impressed with high quality food that requires a lower skill level than poorly prepared fancy food.
• Interact with the staff. Encouraging them, paying for training, etc., goes a long way. Don't forget to give them raises, and don't keep them there overly long or they will be unhappy.
• Help with clearing tables and keeping things neat. 
• Make sure you are not overloading the staff. Greatly reduce the tables available at first and slowly increase them as you can add more staff. For instance, I think each waiter can only handle 3-5 tables. You will have to test to see. and you will need additional cook(s) if you increase tables, also.
• Keep reasonable hours. As related above, if you stay open too late, employees get tired and unhappy - or worse.
• Customers enjoy a pleasant atmosphere. If your sim sings well, I have even added a mic or karaoke machine and have my sims sing, play an instrument if they have skill, etc. sometimes. Or you can add speakers for music, a fireplace, etc.
• Lock the kitchen to customers or they will pester your chefs.
• You may want to add a separate employee bathroom with a door locked to customers. 
• Don't put any tables in a break room or they may count as a restaurant table that the customer cannot reach. 
• I usually hire one more waiter and one more cook than I can get by with. (Sorry - kind of repetitive of the above points.) This gives some flexibility for if one is slacking off a bit, or the occasional no-show.
• If you remember to save your game before you open the restaurant - and before you leave your lot to go there, if you have a no-show employee (especially if it's the host or if you only have one cook or waiter - so you cannot open), you will then have the option of exiting the game without saving and then re-enter and go in again. Almost always things are normal after doing this for me. (In other words, the no-show shows up.)
• Running the restaurant well is a lot of work for quite a while, but eventually they all improve in skills and you get the swing of balancing things also.
• If you're having issues with an employee, get the employee's name and hunt them down in Manage Households. What are their traits? If they have bad traits for the job you could change their traits or fire them and hire someone else. I've sometimes put my staff all into a furnished home. 
• There's a great Carl's Guide about restaurants here: https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/gamepacks/dineout/managing-your-restaurant.php

@elulu8 Sure - you could place the same restaurant in several worlds and have the same sim buy and run them all. Once the staff and restaurant are running really well (see previous post) in any given restaurant you can open the restaurant from the home lot and not even be on site, but it's good to monitor them - otherwise you can lose money. Sometimes it will say you're losing money at one point in the day but will do better later, just to mention that. Usually that means you should take your Sim on site to manage it, though.

@Elmo_Kracken I also was hoping that my 'celebrity chef' could be the chef in the restaurant, and that maybe I could even have my household do the other jobs, but I've made my peace with how it's set up and even think I may have found it pretty frustrating if I had that much I had to control in the restaurant... It would be a pretty heavy load! It already keeps me really busy interacting with customers and employees and clearing some dishes and all. I do wish that you could have a 2nd host for a larger restaurant since you can add more waiters and cooks. It would be a fun way to run a two story restaurant and all.

I also wish you could run a bar in the restaurant and make the money from it. (You can hire a bartender per shift if you have a bar and click on it) but I don't think you make the money. Probably this is because they can order drinks in the menu. Interestingly, if you build a restaurant and have a bar in it, the game will generate a bartender for but not if it's unowned and you're running it.

Pic of San Myshuno world

@elulu8 If you like the idea of having your sims be able to go out for dinner at restaurants or to own and run one yourself, I definitely do!

I think of it like my views on the Vintage Glamour pack. The I love having the option to have a butler - because my expectations for them are not super high. They have been a touch buggy and don't do everything just how you may want, but if your Sim is well-off, what do they have to lose? Plus when I really put a butler to the test in a household that had 8 Sims (including a Servo) and two roommates, the butler had his hands full and was a lifesaver - and even repaired Servo continually autonomously! And the Vintage Glamour pack he comes in costs $9.99 (at regular price)! I find that an amazing value - and it's got a globe bar that they all love for $300 and change!

All that aside, *puts away soapbox*, sometimes a curb of expectation may be in-line, but if a pack offers features you're excited about our would find useful toward your goals or 'storyline', of course it's a good choice for you! Have fun enjoy the way you play your game! 🙌 

@elulu8 There is a sale right now. It ends on June 18th I think? You should check with Origin to be sure. Expansion Packs are 50% off, Game Packs 25% off, and Stuff Packs 20% off. Future sales are hard to predict. It seems like Origin has been running a lot of sales lately but who knows if that will keep happening. 

San Myshuno feels bigger when you play it than it looks like on a map. The Spice Market only has four buildings but two of them are apartment buildings with six apartments in all. There is a ton of empty space above the karaoke bar (Waterside Warble). I put a community crafts center on the second floor (fabricator, candle making, flower arranging, work bench) and a photography studio on the third floor (it's still a karaoke bar on the first floor). The Spice Market also has the Old Salt House (see post #4 for a pic). You can do pretty much anything you want with that lot. Plus you have food vendors, buskers, electricians, luchador/ raccoon weirdos (EA's word for them not mine), and cupcake-dropping Sims always buzzing around the plaza. That's a lot of things going on in just one neighborhood!

The most awesome lot on which to build a restaurant (in my opinion) would be the Stargazer Lounge in the Uptown District. I've kept it a lounge in my game but I completely rebuilt the first level and I added a second level with a large-screen movie theater (from the Movie Night Stuff pack). My lounge is very upscale with entertainers in tuxedos or evening gowns and on most nights you can find famous celebrities from Del Sol Valley there (with their flocks of paparazzi) xD

Here's a pic of the default lot. I think it has the best view in San Myshuno and it looks amazing at night. You can change the lot type on the Stargazer to pretty much anything you like.