It's late at night, and the characters are eating in a diner. That just happens to be on a street corner of a city. That looks EXACTLY like that one painting... This, in a nutshell, is a Hopper Shot - a specific reference to Edward Hopper's most famous painting, "Nighthawks". So famous is this exact setup that most people throughout the industrialized world will immediately recognize the scene, whether or not they know the name of the original painting. Is a subtrope of Art Imitates Art. Compare Pieta Plagiarism and The Scream.