Protractor browser.wait doesn't wait

It is all about promises (actually every protractor question is about promises).

browser.wait() is not a blocking call, it schedules a command to wait for a condition:

Schedules a command to wait for a condition to hold, as defined by some user supplied function. If any errors occur while evaluating the wait, they will be allowed to propagate. In the event a condition returns a webdriver.promise.Promise, the polling loop will wait for it to be resolved and use the resolved value for evaluating whether the condition has been satisfied. The resolution time for a promise is factored into whether a wait has timed out.

It would not call the function you are passing in immediately, it would schedule a command and wait for promise to be resolved (if the function inside returns a promise).

You can use then() to have a correct order in this case:

beforeEach(function() {
    browser.wait(function() {
        console.log('1 - BeforeEach WAIT');
        return true;
    }).then(function () {
        console.log('2 - BeforeEach after wait');
    });
});

See the use cases here:

• How can I wait for a condition?