Mrs McMillian opened the Dean Street cake shop in September 2018 but said the mass cancellation of events, especially weddings, had hit the business extremely hard.

She McMillian said the business had seen a 70 per cent decline in revenue since the beginning of the pandemic.

"It's definitely sad," Mrs McMillian said.

"It's just one of those things, it's no ones fault... we've just got to try stay positive and look at what we can do in the future.

"At the moment it's just dealing with each day as it comes."

Mrs McMillian said initial restrictions, cancellations and closures had hurt the business.

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"A lot of brides had earlier in the year pushed their weddings out to the end of the year, September, October, but they have no idea [when restrictions will lift] still," she said.

"They can't have it now so now they're looking towards the end of next year.

"We had closed for three months [earlier in the year], because I have three children who we had to home school."

And just as things were looking up the border closure hit.

"We came back at the beginning of July, but then the border closures started," she said.

"The last tightening of the border closure definitely had a much bigger impact over here with residents not being able to come over for daily shopping and necessities."

Mrs McMillian said deciding to step away from the Dean Street shop was a really tough decision but with so much uncertainty around the pandemic it made more sense not to renew her lease and to move to operating from home.

She said the business would continue to do wedding and birthday cakes and would look to expand.

"I suppose for quite a long period of time there have been a lot of empty shops in Dean Street, COVID is just making it worse," she said.

"We're looking to start a wholesale and online presence looking to start doing dessert boxes and DIY high tea."

The Cake Cottage will close its Dean Street store on August 28.