Now, bright new placards advertise dance studios, homes for sale and new restaurants on Boulevard Gomez Marin, where at least 15 eateries have recently opened. Posters promote events returning for the first time in years, like theater and the circus, and twice as many American tourists have come to Juárez this year compared with last year, according to the Chamber of Commerce.

The nights here, surprisingly for anyone who has visited since 2008, no longer resemble a war zone with a sunset curfew. There is traffic after dark. Drivers make eye contact, and a half-hour wait for a restaurant table at dinner has become one of the many signs of revival.

“You can walk in the street now,” said Jesus Rodriguez, 25, clearly amazed. “You have to be alert, but you can do it.”

That simple improvement lies at the root of the city’s cautious re-emergence — and its evolution in tastes and attitudes. On one recent evening at Mr. Rodriguez’s restaurant, La Toscana, which opened in January featuring a wide variety of pizzas and small plates mixing Italian and Mexican flavors, every table was full, mostly with what had been an endangered species here just a couple of years ago: young couples out on dates.

Mr. Rodriguez, slight and shy, wearing a black chef’s coat, said he returned to Juárez as soon as he could after moving to Guadalajara in 2006 for college and then staying away because of the violence. He found the money to open La Toscana through “family sacrifice,” he said, and took a chance with a new business because he and his friends were tired of putting off their aspirations.

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“We were in standby mode for so long,” he said. “We were just looking for a little light.”

Mr. Lujana needed more convincing. He resisted when his friends pushed him to cross into Juárez from El Paso for drinks at a new club in early 2012. “I was still scared,” he said. “I kept thinking, no one’s going to steal my car? But then I saw my friends, and some of them had nicer cars than mine.”