John Aslanyan, a pharmacist from San Diego and a regular visitor to Rosarito, said he couldn’t convince his fiancée to join him on this day trip to the town.

She was nervous, he said, that there would be a repeat of November’s border closing — a worry shared by many other of his friends, he added. He did persuade his sister to tag along on this jaunt.

“This is the first time I am seeing this beach this empty,” said Mr. Aslanyan, the lone diner at a restaurant on Rosarito’s oceanfront.

Moises Espitia, an analyst with the Metropolitan Center of Economic and Business Information, a local research group, said the financial pain caused by the border’s shutdown in November was felt particularly acutely in the services and tourism sector.

On the day of the shutdown, the more than 59,000 restaurants and hotels in the Tijuana and Rosarito Beaches metropolitan area suffered a collective loss of $6.7 million, Mr. Espitia estimated.