Short answer: Home Farm Café in the Parke estate is strong on vegan and gluten-free with picnic tables outside. Ullacombe Farm has an on-site butcher and play areas. 3 Sixty does not serve lunch before 12.15. The Cromwell Arms is the well-priced town pub.
In the Parke estate on the edge of town, and the one to pick if anyone in the group is vegan or coeliac — it handles both properly rather than offering a single afterthought. Picnic tables outside, which on a clear moor-edge day is where you want to be.
A farm café with an on-site butcher, play areas indoors and out, and goats you can feed for £1. It is as much a destination as a meal, and the indoor play is the insurance policy against Dartmoor weather.
Sofas and magazines upstairs, bike storage inside. The one practical warning is that lunch does not begin before 12.15, which catches out anyone who has been up on the moor since eight and comes down hungry at half eleven.
The town pub: good beer garden, well priced, rooms upstairs. Straightforward rather than ambitious, which after a day on the moor is usually what is wanted.
The House of Marbles has a licensed restaurant and café on site, and entry to the whole place is free and open seven days a week. You can eat there without paying to get in, which makes it a reliable fallback when the town is busy or the weather has turned.
Canonteign Falls has an excellent café, which is worth knowing if you are making a day of the waterfalls rather than coming back into town for lunch.
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