A Rotorua cafe where members of an Auckland Covid-19-positive family visited at the weekend has been flooded with support from locals.
Fat Dog Cafe boss Chris Powell said staff who were working at the time, along with their households, are isolating and awaiting test results.
However, despite an understandably quiet day today, he said they had a "pretty loyal customer base" and that "Rotorua is a pretty resilient community".
"When we got notified on Wednesday at 4 o'clock we went straight out to our customer base on social media, front-footed it and the response from them has been amazing, absolutely overwhelming from our customers."
Mr Powell said he'd been flooded with emails and phone calls from people appreciative of the transparency and open communication from the cafe.
As for staff, within 30 minutes of being notified by the Ministry of Health, everyone who worked that day between 1.30pm and 2.30pm on Sunday was sent home to isolate, along with everyone in their household.
There was up to 14 people working at the time, but only three were in the customer area at the same time as the infected family.
They are all awaiting Covid-19 test results.
"Today's been quiet, I won't hide the fact and I understand it. Like, I think that everyone needs to be conservative and when we've got this little bit of an unknown in our community, but I think as soon as the testing's done and the tests come back the way we want them to, then it'll be business as usual," Mr Powell said.
"This is a new world, it's the new normal right, so they'll come back, we've been doing this for a long time."
"This is only a short blip, we'll come out the other side."
Fat Dog Cafe has had "bubble seating" with plastic barriers between cubicles since the first wave of Covid-19 in New Zealand.
When asked how the response from the Ministry was, Mr Powell said he was "pretty happy".
"Could've possibly been earlier, maybe we should have found out on Monday or Tuesday, you know, just to speed the process up but maybe they didn't know themselves."
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