A new, old restaurant

Rock rode every night on a local light railway from his apartment across a river to a downtown assortment of restaurants and bars scattered throughout old but solid stone buildings typical of many European cities. On this warm evening, he stepped from the train and was immediately drawn toward a place he hadn't seen before.
It was a modern restaurant that stood alone in a large parking lot. Rock assumed it was part of an American chain, and at first its incongruity rung out, but then he noticed it was built into the ground floor of a building clearly as old as the rest in that part of the city. As he looked more closely, it became apparent that the only difference between this business and the rest nearby was its bright interior lighting. It was crowded, and cars were parked all around it on the narrow streets.