Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Not to get into the badly behaving children/poor service discussion, I'll just address the worst actual seating that I've had at a restaurant.

Valentines Day with my bf at the time, he took me to a nice restaurant in a trendy part of town. We had an 8pm reservation, were seated 20 minutes after our reservation, which wasn't too bad, since we sat at the bar and enjoyed some wine.

However, we were escorted out of the main dining area (where they had really pretty tables set up with sheer curtains separating each table) and into a poorly lit back room where some small tables were set up for their "overflow". And I don't mean dimly lit in a romantic way, but poorly lit, as in I had to hold my candle by my menu to read it.

The table was no bigger than a nightstand with two wire chairs, that were horridly uncomfortable, and we were shoved up against a wall, where the door would open and hit my chair nearly every time a server passed through the two dining rooms. We asked to be moved, but were told that they were overbooked and didn't have any other tables -- even though we saw a larger table (with chair cushions!) vacant through the entirety of our meal.

And I've never been back.