Toronto's largest independently owned grocery store, the beloved Fiesta Farms, unexpectedly closed its doors to the public this morning after learning that an employee had tested positive for COVID-19.

The sprawling supermarket and garden centre near Christie Pits has not yet publicly announced the news, but rumours of the closure started swirling Wednesday morning on both Facebook and Twitter.

"Fiesta Farms just closed. They said one of their employees tested positive for Covid," wrote one local in a Facebook group for residents of Toronto's Annex neighbourhood.

An employee at the store confirmed the news by phone to blogTO early Wednesday afternoon.

The employee was unable to provide details about where within Fiesta Farms the infected staffer worked or when the grocery store would reopen, but did confirm that they closed down today in response to a staff member's positive COVID-19 test.

Someone in the Annex Facebook group who says he spoke with an employee in the store's parking lot says he was told Fiesta Farms was closed for deep cleaning and that it would reopen tomorrow, though this has not been confirmed by the store itself.

Just last week, Fiesta Farms announced on its website that masks would be mandatory for all shoppers moving forward. The business has also been forthright and incredibly communicative with its customers over the course of the pandemic, posting regular "Covid Updates" to a dedicated dashboard and laying out enhanced safety protocols clearly for all to see.

Sadly, it seems as though even the most rigorous sanitization and physical distancing measures can only go so far in the fight against this deadly virus.

Just ask the Loblaws at Dupont and Christie, where employees say as many as 20 staff members (in addition to people who've shopped there) have been infected with COVID-19.