Aberfoyle Park’s Cesar’s Pizzeria closes dining room to protect staff from Covid exposure

The owner of a southern suburbs restaurant has moved to a takeaway-only model, as he doesn’t want to expose his staff to a positive Covid case – or force them to isolate this Christmas.

Adelaide business owner Cesar Coelho could not risk his staff having to isolate alone this Christmas.

Mr Coelho, who owns Cesar’s Pizzeria at Aberfoyle Park, made the decision to close the dining room of his business due to what he says was turbulent advice from SA Health on what his staff would need to do if exposed to a positive case.

“The main reason obviously, from what we understand from SA Health, is if people are at your facility for a prolonged period of time, that being 30 minutes or more, it’s then regarded as a close contact site,” Mr Coelho said.

The Happy Valley man did not want his 13 staff members having to quarantine if a positive case dined in at his business.

He said even after SA Health moved the quarantine requirements for close contacts of Omicron cases from 14 days to seven, it was too risky.

“If you still cop seven days as of now, you’re still shutting potentially your business down and people are still going to be without work, so it’s not really feasible,” he said.

“Essentially I was more concerned about the safety of the staff, and them spending Christmas with their family, which I think should be a priority.”

Cesar Coelho is closing the dining area of his pizza shop. Picture: Keryn Stevens

Cesar Coelho out the front of his restaurant. Picture: Keryn Stevens

He has now moved to a takeaway-only model until the new year, providing work for staff through delivery and in the kitchen. .

Mr Coelho said the messaging from SA Health had been confusing and inconsistent.

“It was all pretty simple decision making on our end, it’s just made hard by what SA Health and the government are doing together by not providing a clear path,” he said.

Willunga Hotel owner Michael Schuetze took it upon himself to shut his business on Sunday afternoon after a local informed him the venue was a potential exposure site.

“There’s a certain moral obligation I think you feel, given the information we got, we were almost 100 per cent certain we had a Covid positive person in the hotel for over an hour,” he said.

Mr Schuetze has treated his pub as a casual exposure site, asking his staff to get tested until they receive a negative result, and closing for a deep clean – but said communication with SA Health has been “non-existent”.

He contacted them by phone and email about the case who community members told him visited the hotel on Friday, but has not heard back.

“We’ve had really good community people who’ve in a way stuck their neck out to provide information to people because we were not getting anything from SA Health,” Mr Schuetze said. He hopes to open the pub on Wednesday.

An SA spokeswoman said contact tracers undertook in depth processes to determine potential cases and exposure sites.