Proximo — Restaurant in Fort Wayne

Sorry about the essay. TL;DR -- the worst service I've ever received at a restaurant.

The whole story: My friend and I decided to have brunch before attending a funeral for another friend at 2 p.m. Proximo was right down the street, so we made a reservation for 12:45 p.m., thinking we would have plenty of time for brunch beforehand. We had no idea what a wild ride we were in for on an already difficult day.

12:45: Arrived at the restaurant. The hostess wouldn’t make eye contact with us and looked absolutely miserable. She also may have been new, because it took three people to figure out which table we were supposed to go to.

12:50: We were seated. Immediately, one of the hosts poured us water and said a server would be right over.

1:05: We were starting to get nervous. One server was wandering around seemingly aimlessly while other servers serve other customers but not us. We decided we would leave if we didn’t get service in the next few minutes.

A few minutes later, a hostess came over (this one was nice) and explained that our server wasn’t able to serve us for an unknown reason and that we had been assigned a different server. Soon after, a manager came over and offers to comp our first drink as an apology. We thanked him.

Our server arrived a few minutes later to ask for our drink order, and I mentioned we are on a tight schedule and needed to put in our whole order. We put in our orders, including two cold brews. The server didn’t say anything about the delay and seemed kind of annoyed to have to serve us.

Sometime in between this and our meal, the server delivered our cold brews. Our appetizer arrived at maybe 1:25. We thanked the server and did not make any comments or ask them to rush, but we were getting very nervous at this point. Tables that got there after us were finishing their meals. Staff started clearing furniture out from beside us and vacuuming next to our table. The restaurant was visibly clearing out.

1:35: Our meals arrived, delivered by a busser. My friend said to the busser, “We need boxes and the check within the next two minutes, please.” We proceed to inhale our food.

1:42: The check arrived. Our server is glaring at us at this point. We were charged for the cold brews.

1:45: We asked the server about the charge. The manager came back over and said, “I know I said I would comp your first drink as a gesture of goodwill, but you were so rude to my servers that I have decided to charge you.” My friend didn’t hear and asked him to repeat what he said, and the manager replied, “You heard me. I’m not comping your drinks.”

Neither my friend nor I am the type of person to be rude to servers, and this was a truly confounding experience. Not only did we wait 20 minutes to see a server and an additional 25 minutes or so for our meals; half the staff seemed apathetic and/or annoyed to be there. To cap it all off, we were insulted and accused of being rude ourselves. Absolutely the worst service we have ever received at...

A high price point for Latin fusion American dishes. The hostess was warm and friendly. She was attentative and courteous with the patrons. The waiter was very friendly and generally warm, however I couldn't get over the fact how much makeup he was wearing. I do the same with females waitress. Please, when working as wait staff, less is more. By no means am I saying anything against him wearing makeup, to each his own. I do not like heavy makeup people serving me food. I would think most high end restaurant owners would agree. Thankfully others did bring us our food. Our waiter did inform us that it was a scratch kitchen, which was nice to know. The cocktail list looks scrumptious and he gave us recommendations but again high end prices for nothing special cocktails. You can order off the dinner menu for lunch, just an fyi it will take a little longer to cook in the kitchen. To be honest, it was an experience and you pay for that. I know that this restaurant is welcoming to all, from the tiny tots, to hispters, and business folks, to grunge. That is nice to see. However if I'm going to pay these prices, I'd prefer to have a meal where children are not running around while their parents are chasing them. But I guess times have changed, this has become a norm. As for the food, I wasn't impressed. Was I full when I left, yes. Did it wow me, no. I had something with crab. It was bowl full of chips, that became soggy and cold quickly. I had high hopes for this and I was sadly disappointed with the lack of flavor. I couldn't distinguish one flavor from another. I like to say I'm a foodie and I look for those dishes that have multiple layers of flavor. The best part was the egg on top and the egg yolk on a chip. The creamy texture of egg yolk and the salty crispy crunch of the chip was a nice experience. But it didn't last. My dish became bland very quick, and there was more chips than anything else. My boyfriend had the halibut. It was served on a bed of white rice. He too said the flavors we're lacking. My mother in law had the salmon with a spicy rice. She can't handle any spice. So the boyfriend and mother in law switch rice and they weren't as disappointed. So a suggestion to the restaurant, serve the halibut with the spicy green rice and the salmon with the white rice. We all left unimpressed. I'd like to say I'd be back, but the food is the star of the attraction, and it isn't calling me back. The only thing that saved it from being 2 stars was the waiter, he was just so friendly and you could tell he likes his job. So everyone must be treated well at this establishment. That is good to see. As we left, the hostess gave us a warm good bye. The staff here sells the place. If only the food would be on par with staff. Then it would be a treat in the...

We have had a wonderful experience prior so it surely depends on the server, but we will not forget this week's visit. We had a 3generation girls outing to celebrate my 19yo twins bday & included my mother and mother-in-law who had never been here before. We made 1145 Sunday brunch reservations for 5, allowing plenty of time before needing to get to the Embassy for our 2pm show tickets. However, there was a LONG wait to get seated, which they said was because they had us listed as a 4party group so we had to wait for a different table. When we were finally seated in the overflow area, it was a table for 4 with a chair at the end to make 5 (totally fine if that's where it ended). After several mins without a waiter, a man hesitantly approached and we asked if he was our server. He immediately made us feel unwelcome by greeting us with- "I'm trying to decide if I'm going to serve you or not... I was judging you when you walked in and I'm still unsure..." We were confused, wondering if he was joking?! He took our drink orders and we didn't see him again for a long time. We were trying to be understanding and patient but as tables around us were being served quickly and it was nearly 1pm and all we had was water... I asked the other waiter if I could speak with the manager. Shortly after, our waiter- named Jared according to our (full priced) receipts- arrived with our drinks and finally took our orders. We expressed our timeline and he assured us we'd be out of there in 30mins. THEN the manager came over and we were friendly but expressed our disappointment in the service, as it certainly didn't feel like a special occasion to be tossed aside & then rushed to eat. He said they were busy but apologized- and never came back to make sure it improved or took anything off our bill. Others brought out our dishes, and we had to wait quite awhile for Jared to appear again to ask for basic salt & pepper and sauce for our items. He immediately asked how to split the checks and we answered- but of course he got it wrong and we had to refigure everything. When we left, the main dining room was nearly empty, so we felt there was NO excuse for how we were treated. Our compliments to the chef for quality food prep, but the service completely ruined our...