EDIT: I'm going to TL;DR the beginning of this, in case someone sees the length of the post and gets their hopes up that it is some epic story. It isn't anything that crazy, just an overly long tale about eating with some rude people in my party who got on my nerves.
One of my most unpleasant times at a restaurant in recent memory was one where I actually loved the food but the people I was with ruined it for me. My wife, daughter, and I went with some family friends to a new Cajun restaurant in town. This building seems like it is always a new restaurant like every six months: something opens up there, I notice the sign and think 'I should try that,' and before it can eat there it had closed down and something new has opened in its place.
Well I was in the mood for Cajun one day and looked up the menu online for this new joint. The food sounded really good but the prices made it clear that it was a nicer restaurant than I was expecting. I decided we'd eat there for dinner that night and told my wife. She said she wanted to invite her friend and I said fine; her friend is an acquaintance of mine but not someone I'd consider my friend really. Anyway, her friend shows up in the parking lot at the same time as us and has brought her mother and son (who is just over one year old at the time, I guess?). That wasn't any surprise really, since her whole family lives with her and none of them can drive or anything, so she takes them wherever she goes most of the time.
We get inside and the restaurant isn't anywhere that I needed to dress up for (I didn't anyway) but it was a nice place. The lighting was really low and pleasant, there was a very small state with an old guy on a stool playing blues and jazz songs on guitar, and the servers were very polite. There was maybe two other parties in there but it was otherwise dead, which was great too that it wasn't crowded.
I was expecting a great time as we were seated and beginning to look at the menus and order drinks and appetizers. I ordered some variant of a mint julep and was excited for a pleasant dining experience. Then it went horribly wrong. First the friend's son started acting up. He began grabbing the silverwear off of the table and throwing it on the floor. The friend and her mother would pick it up and then place it right back down in front of him to play with, which meant he would promptly throw it back onto the floor. We had been seated on an elevated section of flooring which was a bit hollow underneath, so the forks and spoons were extremely loud every time they bounced off the wooden floor. Then he began to yell. Luckily it wasn't crying but just that loud toddler yell that they do when they feel talkative. The friend decided to just ignore it (she ignores him in general most of the time, tbh), so this continued for pretty much the entire meal. The friend's mother pulled out her phone and began watching YouTube videos of some singing contest in her primary language on it, at maximum volume. She didn't start, realize it was up, and then quickly turned it down; She started watching and turned it up all the way. I'm assuming she turned it up so she could hear it over the live musician, because who wants to listen to that noise, am I right? My wife and her friend are carrying on conversations the entire time but are having to speak pretty loudly to be heard over the live music, the YouTube videos, and the yelling children, so they are pretty much yelling to each other about things and then laughing uproariously at whatever it is they are saying.
This goes on for the entire meal. During this, more and more people were coming in to eat. Not that how many other were dining would have made me less mortified; if it was just us and the musician and staff I would have still been upset. But now we are ruining quite a few other people's dining experiences as well. I sat there grinding my teeth, which I never do, and scowling the whole time. My right eye was twitching, something it hadn't done in a while. I wanted to walk out so bad, just stand up and say "I'll be in the car, just tell them to make my food to go and bring it when you are done," but I knew my wife would have just been irritated at me over doing that. I did tell my wife how embarrassed I was when we got to the car and how I was *this* close to walking out but she defended her friend and her friend's family, which is pretty much what I knew would happen and why I didn't walk out: no one would have been on my side no matter what.
I did make sure to tip very generously to the staff who had to put up with us. I was bummed that I didn't have any cash to tip the jazz player who had to deal with YouTube videos competing with the sound of his music.
I knew her son acted like that, because like I said: she takes them all everywhere she goes, and they had been out to eat with us many times. Every time after though I would express my disapproval over the 'acceptance' of her son's behavior to my wife who would hand wave it away with "He's just a kid, what do you expect? He's a baby. What do you think is going to happen when he's born?" and gesture at her pregnant stomach. I'd try to explain that I wouldn't be taking our son to each and every restaurant out there and that if I did, I would allow that kind of yelling and throwing stuff and crying to happen. My son is six months old right now but dealing with that friend's kid at restaurants has made it to where as soon as my son lets out even a small whine like he's going to get fussy, I'm already picking him up and heading out the door with him.