POSTVILLE - Despite a 75 percent drop in sales at his businesses, Cesar Jochola said, his family will find a way to stay in Postville.

He looks up and down the aisles of Tonita's Express, a cramped, dimly lit downtown store, and sees merchandise gathering dust.

At his restaurant next door, Restaurante Rinconcito Guatelmateco, the only people at the tables one day last week around the lunch hour were his two granddaughters working on a puzzle.

"We're working just to pay the rent," Jochola said. "The new workers eat American food: Ham sandwiches, cigarettes, beer. That's it. The majority of our clients have left."

Most Postville business owners report a downturn in sales since federal agents in May arrested hundreds of workers in an immigration raid on the Agriprocessors meat-processing plant. But they also expressed confidence they will survive as long as Agriprocessors stays open.

"We haven't fallen completely apart or anything yet," said Dave Day, general manager at Hall Roberts' Son, a wholesale feed distribution company.

Business owners who cater to the town's Hispanic population report a grimmer outlook.

With no end in sight to plummeting sales, some expect to close in the coming weeks.

At Sabor Latino, one of the city's first Hispanic businesses, five workers have been laid off. The owner told staff a few weeks ago he might close the grocery store if business does not pick up. The restaurant continues to do well, though, because many of Postville's non-Hispanic residents dine there.

Around the corner at El Vaquero, a downtown shop that sells cowboy-style clothing, the doors sometimes remain locked even during normal business hours. Signs that cover pink and white quinceanera dresses in the display window advertise a 50 percent discount on all merchandise, and 30 percent off all 14-karat gold jewelry.

Across the street at Tonita's Express, Jochola said the owners of the clothing store open their doors only a few days a week. They have told him they plan to close.

Jochola speaks Spanish quickly, and in a formal style common among well-educated Latinos. He said he trained as an accountant in Guatemala but left the country more than a decade ago because of widespread violence.

Returning is not option, he said, because he can make more in the U.S. performing low-skilled labor than he can as an accountant in Guatemala.

Jochola said he will do everything he can to stay in Postville. His family escaped gang violence in Los Angeles a few years ago, and they consider Postville an ideal place to raise children.

To make ends meet, they plan to close the restaurant. Jochola or his wife will then look for a full-time job elsewhere to supplement income earned from their grocery store.

"We can't leave this town," he said. "The education for our children is very good. You don't see gangs in the school, and the teachers are very good."

Contact Jens Manuel Krogstad at (319) 291-1580 or jens.krogstad@wcfcourier.com.