The literary and artistic cabaret "Stray Dog" is one of the centers of cultural life of the Silver Age. The artistic cafe or art basement "Stray Dog" operated from December 31, 1911 to March 3, 1915. The name plays on the image of an artist as a homeless dog.

The cabaret was opened by entrepreneur Boris Pronin in the basement of Jacob's house and closed shortly after V. Mayakovsky's anti-war speech. The walls of the cafe were painted by the artist Sudeikin.

Theatrical performances, lectures, poetry and musical evenings, plays were held here. The fame of the art basement was made by its visitors: Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam, Nikolai Gumilev, Igor Severyanin, Nadezhda Teffi, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Velimir Khlebnikov, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Mikhail Kuzmin, Arthur Lurye, Konstantin Balmont, Tamara Karsavina, Alexey Tolstoy, Arkady Averchenko, Sergei Sudeikin, Nikolay Sapunov, Nikolay Kulbin, Nikolay Evreinov, Rurik Ivnev, Pallada Bogdanova-Belskaya, Dmitry Tyomkin, Alexey Lozina-Lozinsky and others.