Cartmel VillageShop

Howard and Jean Johns came to Cartmel in 1971 to run the King's Arms, took over the village shop in 1989, and made it famous the accidental way: the sticky toffee pudding they sold from the counter grew into the Cartmel Sticky Toffee Pudding Company, whose claim to be the original is printed on several million lids a year — wholesale to Booths and Waitrose is disclosed here, because the guide read the labels. Their son Simon came home from an American catering career to run the pudding side, and Companies House shows a board that is entirely family. The shop itself still does the village's daily business from Parkgate House on the square, pudding pilgrims notwithstanding — and it has no connection to the village's Michelin operation, a fact both parties presumably enjoy.