Popular Belconnen eatery Ricardo's Cafe was shut down by ACT Health on Tuesday, with a notice on the door citing "serious food safety breaches" and "risk to public health".
Canberrans on social media expressed shock over the quiet closure while others came forward with their encounters with salmonella poisoning, which they believe they caught from dining at the cafe.
Owner Ricardo De Marco said he was waiting for ACT Health at "any minute" to reopen his cafe on Thursday.
He said ACT Health had shut him down over salmonella poisoning related to his smoothies and cronuts, but he also claimed tests on the cronuts had come up with nothing.
"All I know is that it's from smoothies and cronuts and like I said, there's testing on all of them," Mr De Marco said.
"They came back with the smoothies, so we took it off the menu, and they told us the things we had to change and we did it straight away," he said.
"It's hard when you're being accused but there hasn't been evidence shown to you.
"I've heard stories of people who say they were sick and they didn't know what it was and [ACT Health] asked have you been [to Ricardo's] in the last two weeks and they nailed us on that."
He said he had followed ACT Health guidelines but was told it still wasn't good enough and said now it was about making sure both he and ACT Health were doing the right thing.
Mr De Marco claimed it was only a span of a week between ACT Health first contacting him regarding his smoothies and cronuts and shutting down the cafe.
The cafe was closed on Tuesday and since then he said the kitchen has been stripped and sanitised.
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ACT chief health officer Dr Paul Kelly confirmed the Health Protection Service had identified an outbreak of salmonella at a cafe in Belconnen.
"Staff from HPS have inspected the cafe and found some issues related with food handling processes and procedures. HPS has served a prohibition order on the premises and is working with the cafe to address these issues," Dr Kelly said.
"The cafe will be closed until such time as the identified issues have been rectified. This action means that there is no ongoing risk to the health of the ACT population from this event."
Gym owner Pip O'Shea, 34, said she ate there with friends on Sunday the 5th February and ate one of the cronuts before she felt sick on the Monday.
"I came back from the gym, and that night I've gone, yeah mate something's gone wrong," Ms O'Shea said.
Ms O'Shea said doctors told her it was temporary, but she was in hospital on Thursday after her mother, a nurse, saw her and told her "you look terrible".
"They did the tests and on Saturday they told me I tested positive for salmonella," Ms O'Shea said.
"ACT Health called me on Sunday. They were only asking me about Ricardo's, and then they went through the menu with me to see what I'd eaten."
Ms O'Shea wasn't admitted to hospital but still had to take time off her two jobs, asking people to cover shifts at her gym which she'd only opened four weeks ago and organising a relief teacher at the college she taught at.
Another woman, Katie Skinner, 23, was worse off than Ms O'Shea, having to be hospitalised for four days with her doctor telling her she would have been on a dialysis machine if she hadn't arrived at hospital sooner.
"In total I had five litres of water pumped in me through an IV drip and I spent four days in hospital and I lost about 8 kilograms in the space of 10 days," Ms Skinner said.
Ms Skinner said she went with a friend on Tuesday 31st January and had a chicken burger and a mango smoothie, she felt sick that night and ended up in hospital with a high temperature, severe dehydration, tachycardia and kidney failure.
"I visited the doctor and she just saw me and she said I'm going to call you can ambulance, you're going to hospital," Ms Skinner said, she was admitted to hospital on Sunday 5th February.
Ricardo's Cafe was the only cafe she'd eaten at, normally she ate at home with her family and ACT Health contacted her after she was discharged on Wednesday 8th February.
"They just told me they were doing a little bit of investigation," Ms Skinner said, and similar to Ms O'Shea, they asked her to name what she'd eaten.
It was often spread through the consumption of poorly cooked or contaminated foods. Raw or undercooked eggs, meat and poultry are particularly high risk foods.
Dr Kelly urged anyone with concerns to see a medical practitioner.