College worker spotted without son in cafeteria (7)
I believe the answer is:
canteen
'cafeteria' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'college worker spotted without son' is the wordplay.
'college worker' becomes 'cant' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'spotted' becomes 'seen' (I've seen this before).
'without' indicates named letters should be taken away.
'son' becomes 's'.
'seen' with 's' taken away is 'een'.
'cant'+'een'='CANTEEN'
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for canteen that I've seen before include "Cafe, flask and cutlery box" , "Workplace restaurant" , "A case of cutlery" , "University restaurant" , "Staff restaurant" .)