@crinrict No. I don't own the restaurant. In one of the patches, it was said that this issue was fixed but it's not. I still have some instances when npc's my sims are out at a restaurant with, will stop eating or won't eat at all. Sometimes, there's just a delayed response time but restaurants are still broken. My issue was never about my sims not being able to drink. I mentioned that them and npc's would not eat. The timer is related bcus it's a part of an event when your sims are the ones who are invited to the restaurant and not the other way around. That is why I mentioned it. It's when an npc calls and asks you to go someplace, a timer is set for that moment but in this case, there's no timer at all.
