Short answer: Ullacombe Farm on the Haytor road has a butcher, a café, goats to feed and play areas indoors and out. The Muddiford Inn near Barnstaple combines a pub and a farm shop. Home Farm Café at Parke does farm-quality food inside a National Trust estate.
A farm shop is worth a detour when it does three things: sells something you cannot get in a supermarket, has a café good enough to be a destination, and gives children something to do while you shop. Devon has several that manage all three, and a lot that manage none.
On the Haytor road above Bovey Tracey, and the best of them. There is an on-site butcher, a farm shop, and a café doing freshly prepared food with cakes and pies that reviewers photograph before eating. Goats, alpacas and sheep to feed for a pound a bag, play areas indoors and outdoors, and a children's afternoon tea served in a little hen house.
It is the obvious stop on the way to or from Dartmoor, and it is well set up for a proper hour rather than a quick pull-in. One reviewer's note is worth passing on: the café does not use the on-site butcher's sausages, but the ones you buy from the counter are excellent.
North of Barnstaple, combining a country pub with a farm shop — a good beer garden, a children's play area, and it opens at half seven in the morning. Well regarded for Sunday lunch. Closed Mondays.
Inside the National Trust's Parke estate at Bovey Tracey. Not a farm shop as such, but farm-quality cooking with several vegan dishes, extensive gluten-free including sandwiches, banh mi and excellent cream teas. Lots of picnic tables outside with parasols, and you order and collect by buzzer.
Two places worth knowing. At Beer, the fishing boats are winched up onto the shingle beach and the catch is sold from a stall on it. At Budleigh Salterton, fresh fish is sold on the beach. Brixham has the working fish market, though that is a trade operation rather than a shop.
Several of these are on narrow lanes with limited parking, and the good ones get busy at weekends. Mid-morning midweek is the easy time.
Pick a town and plan the day around who's with you.
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