Roy Beers: The enduring appeal of the Republic of Colin

However it's arguably his Republic beer-with-food bars - no two of which are exactly alike - which have been his enduring success.

At some point he switched horses from "posey" to "accessible", keeping plenty of style credentials but in an easygoing casual-dress format guaranteed to appeal to a large and fairly civilised customer base. It worked.

Now, at the very time when many bars are struggling with the effects of the smoking ban, and the cost of licensing bureaucracy, he's just opened his fifth Republic in the middle of Sauchiehall Street.

It's what Glaswegians call a "gallus" move.

It's a bold move, too, because this particular street is mobbed with generally cheap and cheerful revellers at weekends, and his offer is upper mid-market. In his Gordon Street basement Republic of Bierhalle venue on a busy Saturday afternoon he pointed out the customer mix to me: 50 per cent women, including a fair number eating and/or drinking on their own. Decent food, premium continental beer in frosted glasses - these, along with top dollar service, are the main draws; that and the nice, relaxed "vibe" about the place.

At the risk of sounding like a press release - honest, no PR involved - the design credentials of Republic bars match the customer offer and service: they're stylish but not style bars: nice, civilised, reasonably-priced and relaxing places to be.

Colin tells me it was his early days as a DJ in high end clubs in Ibiza which gave him a lifelong "knowledge" of what customers want, which continues to serve him in good stead. He has never been one for the rapid roll-out, doesn't ever want a "chain" in the usual sense - there's no pubco branding and only subtle design clues (and a signature "Alpine view" screen) to tie all the bars together, along with an encyclopaedic collection of global bottled beers and numerous draft premium beer options.

So what about the smoking ban? It was the best thing that ever happened, he says. His takings rocketed immediately and he's never looked back - people nip out for the occasional fag but not in the sort of numbers that would cause a problem: on the contrary a "brand" that's nearly 10 years old has still clearly got "legs", and could (it's entirely possible) see still more Republics popping up around the country; its natural habitats would include St Andrews, Edinburgh, possibly Aberdeen - maybe even Stirling.

Contrast this story with the fate of leased pubs which appear to be falling vacant and moribund all over Scotland. The basic bar, the branded bar with little character - these, their performance undermined by costs and exacting lease terms - are taking a hammering. There's an eerie "ghost town" feel about a boarded-up pub you remember was merrily trading away as a student-oriented bar-bistro just a few years ago: what went wrong?

In an article in The Herald this week Mark Hunt, the man who famously rid Tennent's Lager cans of their famous/notorious pin-up girls back in 1994, repeats in lucid detail what so many operators have been saying in The Publican. The pub market is in change, very rapid change, and the bars landscape will look very different just a few years down the line.

Paul Waterson, chief executive of the Scottish Licensed Trade Association, has a similar perspective. He regularly quotes stats to prove we have become a nation of take-home drinkers.

They're both really saying the obvious - that only those fit enough to meet the rolling barrage of challenges to the trade can hope to survive.

In Glasgow the weekend booze-up is still king, for large sections of the drinking population, but there's also an explosion of outdoor dining, along with new restaurants galore. Competition is ferocious, so customers get variety and also value.

Below "fine dining" league restaurant fare is generally cheap, and there are fantastic pre-theatre deals to be had; yet still food pubs can hope to do well if they're offering something more advanced than the ancestral lasagne and chips.

But is there a future for the straightforward drinking hall? In Scotland, particularly in the cities, it's very usual for trad bars to be single-room enterprises which frequently couldn't accommodate a kitchen even if they wanted one.

Smokers have been amazingly loyal to the best of the trad bars, putting up with all sorts of iniquities rather than give up their time-honoured haunt, and at least one veteran puffer of my acquaintance has finally given up the weed - which perhaps wouldn't have happened without the ban.

So it's not all doom and gloom - far from it. But as well as the drift towards closure in tertiary estates and the growing desperation in sections of the leased sector there's the threat of "polluter pay" levies and other government initiatives which could prove expensive if not effective.

Recently I spoke to an Edinburgh licensee who is an experienced and able operator. He told me candidly he thought recent government attempts to curb alcohol abuse by piling difficulties on to licensees is literally killing even some of the best pubs.

It's a Darwinian struggle for survival in which the leased estates will fight for share, casting off their under-performers to concentrate on guaranteed achievers.

Independent bars with a solid regular customer base and no historic debt can also hope to survive the storm, as can particularly strong concept pubs like Colin Barr's.

The pub is just one of several fairly attractive customer choices, so it has to be a case of "long live the Republic" - we need innovators like never before.