This year, it scraped in a meagre $4650.

Owner and manager Jenny Cesnik said those figures are, in black-and-white terms, the resulting effect of Tarcutta's new $225 million bypass.

"We're battling," Ms Cesnik said.

"In comparison to last year, we are very quiet."

Since the bypass officially opened on Tuesday, November 15 - detouring the last of the town's stray visitors - Tarcutta residents have been living on borrowed time, wondering how long it will be until their businesses dry up.

Across the Christmas period, Ms Cesnik said the Caltex Fast Food had been trading at less than half of what it brought in last year.

On Christmas Eve alone, the business brought in a mere $21,000 - compared to the $47,000 it generated on the same day in 2010.

Hitting the holiday break - normally a busy time on the roads - Ms Cesnik has been faced with a staffing crisis, trying to predict working hours for her employees - many of whom have already had their shifts cut.

"How long is a piece of string?" she asked.

She remains sceptical as to how the businesses will go once the holiday season ends and the slower months, from February through to winter, hit.

Denzel Clarke, manager of Tarcutta Textiles Co-Op Ltd, has watched his business drop by 35 to 50 per cent in the past month.

Previously, 90 per cent of his customer base was made up of passing motorists, travelling from as far as Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and Albury.

He said if the decline continued, the business would not be viable.

While he employs eight staff members, he said that he was lucky two had chose to resign so shift cuts weren’t a problem.

His next biggest challenge will be finding an online market for his goods so the community business continues to thrive.

Owner of the Tarcutta post office Rhonda Shoemark said while many businesses may join Mr Clarke and try their luck outsourcing online, her service relies on people coming into the shop to do their banking and post.

“It is eerily quiet, the whole town,” she said.

“You walk out and there is basically nothing happening out there.”