Port Melbourne cafe owner 'had no idea' his shop was a COVID-19 exposure site

A Melbourne cafe owner had no idea his shopwas a coronavirus exposure site and was serving customers for hours before being advised he should be closed.

Owner Charlie Nasr told 3AW's Neil Mitchell he opened the doors of Port Park Cafe in Port Melbourne as normal for an hour-and-a-half this morning, oblivious to the fact the shop had been exposed to COVID-19.

An infected customer attended the shop of Monday between 12.30pm and 1pm and the venue was listed as a Tier One exposure site, but Mr Nasr said no one contacted him before he opened to advise him he had to shutdown.

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"My phone was going off, saying 'you're all over the news is everything okay?'," Mr Nasr said.

A customer then told Mr Nasr his cafe had been listed as an exposure site, meaning anyone at the cafe during the specified times had to get a test and isolate for 14 days.

"I still haven't heard anything, I presume, from DHHS," he said.

At about 8am Mr Nasr got a phone call from the South East Public Health Unit at Monash Health advising him the shop was an exposure site and to shut down immediately.

"No one told me," he said.

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"I presume I was supposed to get a text message - or someone here at 6am this morning making sure I don't open my doors."

The cafe will undergo a deep clean and all staff and customers onsite at the time will be required to quarantine.

In another contact tracing bungle, callers told Mitchell they had received text messages from the health department advising them to isolate as they went to a match attended by a positive COVID-19 case when they had not.

More than 50 exposure sites have been listed across the state.