The beer garden is something I have not heard about for a while, I am sure it is still around. Yes, I remember beer gardens in the Tokyo area meant rooftops of department stores. I remember beer gardens in the Tokyo area were marketed as casual places where you stop by with coworkers after work. Looks as if today's beer gardens in Tokyo are a little more fancy places, even for dates? I really do not think beer gardens in Tokyo back in '70s and '80s were a place for a date. Possible that department stores started beer gardens to bring more people to department stores. Department stores in Tokyo were, and I think still are, a place for slightly upper-scale shopping, not an everyday shopping place. Beer gardens in Japan are summer outdoor things, no indoor beer gardens in Japan.