A man has been arrested after five central Wellington shops had windows smashed or damaged overnight.

Wholly Bagels owner Junwei Hu said the damage had been been done on purpose with "lots of force".

He said he had no idea why someone would break holes in the windows and push mushrooms through to the shop floor.

"There's quite a bit (of) mushrooms... I don't know how they did it, but like, it's inside everywhere. Maybe they squashed through the hole."

A dairy on Lambton Quay also had windows damaged.

Security footage at Lambton Mart showed the glass was shattered by a hammer, manager Mayank Patel said. Cards similar to bank cards had been dropped inside.

Patel said the hammer hit a letter 'o' on the Lotto logo at Lambton Mart, Patel said.

The same part of the Lotto logo at TJ Superette was targeted, as was the letter 'o' at Coco Wellington and in the word 'Hottest' on window of Mecca on Lambton Quay.