The bar hosted tertulias and revolving art exhibits, including one of the first one-man shows by Pablo Picasso; the most prominent piece in its permanent collection was a lighthearted Casas self-portrait, depicting him smoking a pipe while pedaling a tandem bicycle with Romeu as his stoker. The original of the painting—or most of it: nearly a third of the canvas was cut away by an intervening owner—is now in Barcelona's Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC); a creditable reproduction resides in the revived "Els Quatre Gats".