Co-owner Simonn Hawke was busy unloading a freezer on Monday morning; a good deal of the restaurant's stock was able to be saved, however Ms Hawke said they'd probably lost "a few thousand dollars" worth of produce, including expensive cheeses.

Ms Hawke said staff had been given Monday off: "It's their first day out of isolation so it's only fair to let them readjust to being outdoors again."

She said all staff members had chosen to return, and that "everybody seems relatively upbeat and pretty happy to be coming back to work, and getting out and about and doing normal things again - it's a positive vibe".

In early January, with 2020 in the rear view mirror and several thousand tourists in the city, Ms Hawke was looking forward to a few weeks of brisk trade ahead of the post-holiday slowdown.

But on Sunday January 3 a Sydney man who had been on a camping trip in the state's far west visited Birdie Noshery & Drinking Est. between 12pm and 2pm.

He later tested positive to COVID.

On Tuesday January 5 the restaurant had to close, with staff who were at the venue at the time of the man's visit and their close contacts forced to isolate for 14 days and take multiple COVID tests.

All staff have tested negative.

The venue underwent a deep clean with hospital grade disinfectant.

'You don't have to do anything crazy like scrub the ceiling," said Ms Hawke. "We were able to do it ourselves with guidelines from the Department of Health."

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