Zeffirelli's

Derek Hook built Ambleside's evening out four decades ago and refused to choose a trade: Zeffirelli's is a cinema, a vegetarian restaurant, a café and a jazz bar in one family operation, with sister room Fellinis serving daily from five so the film and the dinner make one booking. The trade has kept noticing — Screen Awards Cinema of the Year in 2017, Cumbria's family business award the same year, a Cumbria Life food and drink win in 2020 — and the company's register still reads Hook and kin. Its own film festival, Inward Eye, returns in November 2026. In a village this size, an institution like this is civic infrastructure with popcorn.