Is there anyway to do this maybe using SimPE or like the game itself? Not sure if I've asked this already. Appreciate any and all help, thanks.

If you place the restaurant stove and podium on a community lot and change the zoning to residential, then move in a family, you can have a working home restaurant. I did it once and would not recommend it as the chef, server and host stay doing their jobs 24 hours per day. It got annoying fast.

If you mean you just want an NPC around your home doing things like cook for your sims, yes that can also be done. Christianlov has a couple of NPC makers, one is called an all in one and you set what you want them to do and there is also an NPC nanny. I'm not sure if the file is on here or in his archive. Just look up Christianlov files on Google. The object you use is a painting.

There is a hack that makes the Uni cafeteria worker come to a residential lot and cook for you if you buy the special stove ... let me find it.

Found it: http://www.insimenator.org/index.php?topic=11745.0

I use this hack, too. Question: Is the cafetaria worker safe to temper with (nothing intrusive, just new clothing, hairstyle and a few more cooking points)? Or is she an object-npc that´s better left alone?

One question - is this mod compatible with Apartment Life/M&G?

The uni cooktop patch works fine with all EP's, I use that at my school and hostel. The sim who arrives is a regular NPC, not an object. If you marry them in they simple become a playable sim and a new NPC cafeteria worker will sporn. Also the worker can be a man, so no 'perfect' wife there, unless you consider setting the place on fire to be of value.

Thanks guys! Appreciate the help

Yeah, EA was pretty stereotypical with the cafeteria workers. Of course, this game WAS made before the economy went completely to hell with people with college degrees lining up to get jobs flipping hamburgers or digging ditches.

Pfft, these days it's more like taking drive through orders in the day and housekeeping in the hospital at night, working construction in the morning and delivering pizzas in the evening, serving kids in the school cafeteria in the morning and cashiering in the grocery store in the evening (I knew someone in her early 20s that did that, not just old ladies like EA depicts in uni), etc. Everybody's lining up to take on multiple part-time minimum wage jobs these days 'cause a lot of people have trouble finding even a full-time minimum wage job.