IZMIR, Turkey >> For more than a year, the Sinbad restaurant in Basmane Square was packed every day with hundreds of migrants from Syria anxiously conferring with brokers to negotiate fees to reach Europe through the perilous sea crossing from Turkey to Greece.

But this week it was mostly empty. Six of its employees had been laid off and those who remained said they had taken a 50 percent pay cut.

“All our clients were Syrian and we lived off their tips,” said Mohammed Hajji, 22, a waiter at the cafe. “This place used to be so packed you couldn’t find a spot to put your feet. Now look … ” His voice trailed off as he pointed to a row of empty tables and chairs.

Until last month, the warren of narrow streets surrounding Basmane Square made up a vibrant transit hub, part of the multimillion-dollar raft economy that arose around the business of moving hundreds of thousands of migrants into Europe. But now, days after Greece began sending migrants back to Turkey under a contentious deal with the European Union to curb the flow of migrants to Europe, the boom has turned to bust.

“Every business in this square profited from the refugees, and now they’ve suddenly gone,” said Kadir Akinci, the manager of a taxi company in the Basmane neighborhood. “We’ve taken a 70 percent cut in profits. Those passengers were our livelihood.”

Smugglers, once inundated with requests from desperate migrants, meandered through cafes and teahouses looking for the stray refugee. Clothing stores still displayed mannequins donning life vests and inner tubes, but sales were sparse.

Taxi drivers, who had transferred thousands of passengers to isolated departure points, hung around the square looking morose. Hotels that had been booked for months by smugglers now sat empty, and Arabic signs erected to appeal to Syrians had mostly been removed from shop windows.

Under the terms of the deal, Turkey will take back migrants who arrive in Greece illegally, while the European Union will still admit thousands of Syrian refugees and has pledged $6.8 billion in aid to improve conditions for migrants living in Turkey. Also promised under the agreement is visa-free travel to Europe for Turkish citizens and the reopening of negotiations in Turkey’s long-stalled application for European Union membership.

Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said Tuesday that by dissuading people from undertaking the dangerous crossing, the arrangement would prevent the Aegean Sea from turning into “a cemetery for migrants.” But rights groups have questioned the legality of the pact.

Since the deal went into effect on March 20, the influx of migrants into Greece has fallen drastically, from thousands of daily arrivals to a couple hundred. Even as smugglers continue to try to trick passengers into leaving, the recent crackdown against them by Turkish authorities has pushed operations underground.

“The biggest problem is that when the Syrians came here, the Turks moved away,” said Akinci, the manager at the cab company. “And even if they now come back, it won’t compare to the business of the boats. The well has dried up.”

Still, even as migrants abandon Izmir in search of alternative routes, the flow into Greece has not ended entirely. Smugglers have lowered their fares from $700 to $550 and continue to push Syrian refugees into undertaking the journey.

Smugglers say it now takes them three days to load a boat with 35 to 40 passengers, whereas before they had trouble finding enough boats to accommodate the legions of migrants.

The courtyard of a mosque across from the square here used to be packed with migrants waiting to depart for Greece. On this day only one Syrian woman stood there, with her three young brothers, trying to decide whether to chance the passage.

“We tried to leave twice, but we were stopped, detained and then released again,” said Abir Mustafa, 26, the Syrian woman outside the mosque. “We will try again today. My husband is in Greece, and Syrians are not being sent back.”

That is only partly true. But it has become a talking point for smugglers, who are trying to capitalize on the indisputable fact that most of the first to be deported from Greece have largely been Pakistanis and Afghans. But like the others, Syrians, too, face deportation, unless they can prove they are not economic migrants.

After being informed that Syrians were also being processed for deportation, Mustafa broke down in tears and asked for advice. Just then, a smuggler approached her and called out in Arabic, “Let’s go.”

She hesitated, taking one step forward and then one step back, as the three children clenching bags of food looked up at her for direction.

“Are Syrians being sent back?” she asked the smuggler.

“I don’t know, it’s just Afghans at the moment,” he said, urging her to hurry up.

She grabbed her suitcase again as if to leave, her face riddled with anxiety. Frustrated by her indecisiveness, the smuggler walked away.

“I still want to go. What’s the worst that can happen? They’ll send me back to a refugee camp,” she said. “That’s OK. I’ve been waiting for a container in a Turkish camp for over two years.”

© 2016 The New York Times Company