Well, that's hard to believe. Its been almost 6 months since this problem was reported and its not fixed. It doesn't appear important enough to them to fix, as with other issues that linger on forever.
If they really cared and couldn't fix it, the least they could do would be to give us an extra counter or two to make up for the lost counter(s).
It seems like the issue occurs when the game syncs with the server after a while, and instead of recognizing the sold dishes they put back the dishes on the counter that were there at one point in time, unless the counter has been filled. Maybe if they checked all the counters (not hard, there's at most 20) before they restored them, and saw that there was a duplicate dish placed there, they could just add the plates to the existing plates rather than take up another counter. This is a workaround rather than a fix, but at least it'll give them more time to try (or not try) to solve the real issue.