John Schoen / msnbc.com

  John Ravenscroft, manager of Mad Anthony's restaurant in Elkhart, Ind., says business is picking up.

ELKHART, Ind. -- As economists sift through the tea leaves looking for signs of recovery, they might want to stop by for a beer at Mad Anthony's on Main Street.

When times get tough, eating out is one of the first things people trim from their budgets. So when this Fort Wayne-based brewery decided to open a fourth restaurant here about a year ago -- with the economy still in free fall -- it was something of a leap of faith.

Now, as the economy here shows early signs of pulling out of a steep slide, the leap appears likely to pay off, according to John Ravenscroft, the restaurant's general manager.

"I think we're getting closer (to recovery)," he says. "We've had our ups and downs. But right now we're getting to where business is consistent."

After getting his degree in hospitality management at Purdue University, Ravenscroft decided to come home to Elkhart, where he landed a job as a server when Mad Anthony's first opened. A year later, he's running the place.

At opening, with Elkhart in the depths of the worst downturn since the Great Depression, some skeptics doubted the restaurant could make a go of it.

"They said, 'You've got to be out of your mind to start a restaurant'," he says.

Unemployment in Elkhart had logged the sharpest increase in the nation in 2008 -- jumping from 4.7 percent in January to 15.3 percent when Mad Anthony's opened in December, and continuing to climb through the spring.

When the restaurant began taking job applications, "people were lined up around the block," said Ravenscroft.

After a honeymoon period when local patrons checked out the new place in town, Mad Anthony's settled into a slower pace. These days, business may pick up one week only to fall off the next. Ravenscroft figures it's because patrons with biweekly paychecks are still limiting their dining out.

On a recent Wednesday evening, a lively group of regulars fills up the bar; the restaurant, which seats about 200, is less than half full. Still, traffic has picked up enough to keep the restaurant consistently in the black, said Ravenscroft. And the banquet room calendar is booked with holiday parties through the rest of the year.

Several other restaurants have opened nearby in the past year, which helps create something of a destination for local diners.

  John Schoen / msnbc.com

Mad Anthony's, located in a refurbished cinema building on Main Street, is part of a broader push to spruce up downtown Elkhart.

"For the longest time people would take their money and go to Mishawaka or South Bend," said Ravenscroft. "Now they know they don't have to go that far."

Ravenscroft says his next goal is to try to attract customers to Elkhart from those other towns.

Restoration of the historic ELCO Theater -- scheduled to reopen in about a year -- is also expected to help bring more diners to the area. Steve Gruber, president of Downtown Elkhart, says the project is on track with plans to open its new season a year from now with a performance of The Nutcracker Suite in time for Thanksgiving.

Gruber says he's also seeing a pickup in interest from investors who have begun buying up buildings downtown at bargain prices.

"We're definitely hearing about a return to residential rehab -- taking second floor space that was dormant and turning them into apartments," he said.