During the 18th century, the ground floor was turned into kafana. In the late 19th century, it was owned by Naum Nikolić, who then sold it to Todor Marić Gačula while in 1927 Marko Todorović Čanak bought the premises. It is not known when and how the kafana got its name. It was originally called only Kod medveda ("Bear's"). The kafana was noted for its cimer, a hanging tin plaque with an image of the standing bear. As the town's house painters gathered in the kafana, celebrating their guild's festivities, they often painted the cimer, changing the color of the bear, into black, grey or white. As they mostly painted it in white, the locale became known as the "White Bear". Though named after the paint, white bear is Serbian name for polar bear. Todorović, who was nicknamed Marko Medved after the kafana, owned the tavern until 1948 when the state nationalized it, leaving the Todorović family to live in the residential area on the first floor. Until the early 1960s, when it was closed, the tavern was quite popular.
