Just had to recommend this wonderful little casual lunch place even though Penrith is probably not on most RS tourist itineraries.
Narrowbar Cafe is a sort of health-food place, casual and not at all holier-than-thou about healthy food, it's just what they happen to serve. Very affordable, with friendly, helpful staff. For the price of what you'd pay for a barely edible fast-food snack at a rest stop on the M6, you can have a satisfying, freshly prepared sit-down lunch here.
We were in Penrith seeking directions -- which we got from the tourist information office -- to drive to the stone circle known as Long Meg and Her Daughters. We found Penrith to be a pleasant town, with a much more real, workaday feeling than Keswick, the other Lake District town near a stone circle (Castlerigg). The Penrith high street (Middlegate), where Narrowbar Cafe is located, opens out to a square in front of the town hall with a historic clock.