A Mogo family has temporarily closed its businesses and all staff are being tested for COVID-19 after being told an infected customer visited a cafe last week.
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Will Procter said NSW Health told him the contact was classed as "casual" and they did not have to close, but the family decided to shut its five outlets until the results of tests were known.
The businesses are The Courtyard Cafe, Lots of Lollies Mogo, The Middle of Mogo, Mogo Fudge and Icecream and the kitchen outlet, In and Out at Mogo.
Mr Procter said the health department alerted him at about lunchtime on Monday, July 21, and asked for the register of sit-down customers at the cafe.
"They had information a person who was infectious had been in the cafe that day," he said.
The alert followed a cluster associated with the Batemans Bay Soldiers Club and the Easts holiday park on Wharf Road.
"I discussed it with the lady from health; it was what they call a casual contact, a brief face-to-face encounter," Mr Procter said.
"Because it was only a casual contact, there was no requirement for staff to be tested or the cafe to be closed."
The business includes Mr Procter's wife and their three sons and also employs a grandson.
"We had a family conference and weighed up the options and decided, in the best interests of staff and the public, that staff would be tested and we would close down," Mr Procter said.
He said most of the dozen staff, including the six family members had been tested after a "mass exodus to Moruya yesterday" to the hospital clinic.
Results have not been returned and three tests remain to be done today, Tuesday, July 21.
Now it was a waiting game, but Mr Procter said his team had followed all protocols.
"We will wait for the tests to come back; we will be very surprised if anyone was positive," he said.
"Then we will reopen and comply with all the regulations."
He said measures included sanitising all the doors and social distancing.
"We have public toilets were people can wash their hands," he said.
Care was taken with the register.
Mr Procter commended the staff working overtime at the Moruya clinic under huge pressure as anxious people queued to be tested.
"The nurses at the COVID testing centre were amazing," he said.
"There were long quees and tempers were getting frayed a little at times.
"My wife asked a nurse when her shift was finishing and she said 'several hours ago', but she was still in there helping."
Mr Procter described the dilemmas business owners faced.
"You have no way of telling who the person who is going to spread the disease," he said.
"You can have 1000 people walking through your doors and you can have no idea.
"If there is ever going to be any semblance of normality you have to have some acceptance of risk.
"As soon as we knew what was going on, we contacted businesses around us, people who had been in the cafe recently and the business chamber."
He said the chamber would have quickly alerted others.
