If you’re looking for a job right now — or if you’ve just been listening to “Marketplace” recently — you know the bright spots in the U.S. labor market are few and far between.

Health care jobs are growing, though not much of a shocker there, as an aging America still gets sick, regardless of how the rest of the economy is doing.

A little more surprising, though, might be the coffee shop or pizza place down the street that still has a “help wanted” sign in the window.

Employment at food service and drinking places grew by about 17,000 jobs between June and August, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overall, the restaurant industry is up 120,000 jobs year over year. What gives?

The Alston is a new steakhouse in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood. It opened in May. As you’d expect for a fancy steakhouse in a fancy part of town, that also offers something called tableside duck press, the steak ain’t cheap.

“It ranges from, you know, high 50s, all the way into, if you're going into some of the real specialty, wagyu, is [$300], $400,” said Scott Weiner, part of the ownership group for The Alston. (The tableside duck press thing is $225, if you’re wondering.)

If you think with a weakening job market and sticky inflation and all this general economic agita out there, consumers may not have much of an appetite for $100 steak, you’d be wrong.

Weekend reservations at the Alston are booked out weeks in advance.

“If you think about the income gap, right? It tells me that the people that have money have a lot of it, and they're spending it,” Weiner said.

Nationally, restaurant spending overall is up almost 6% over the last year.

While higher-income foodies are still splurging on fine dining, middle-income consumers don’t want to give up one of the indulgences they can still afford.

“You hear that people might be not taking vacations, they might not be going out and making those big purchases, but people still want to go out to eat,” said Chad Moutray, an economist at the the National Restaurant Association.

You already cancelled that trip to the Bahamas — no need to cancel the trip to Chili’s.

Return-to-office mandates and higher grocery costs have also likely lured more customers away from their ovens and air fryers at home.

Moutray said a surprisingly steady flow of diners is keeping restaurant hiring relatively strong.

“The toughest positions to hire are number one managers, right? But you also have a lot of demand for chefs and for cooks and especially for those in more of a scratch kitchen,” he said.

Job postings for food service managers and food prep workers were up by 26,000 this summer compared to last, according to the labor data company Lightcast.

Some of those positions though, may be open only because they used to be filled by undocumented immigrants.

“People were like, ‘Look, I can't come to work because I'm afraid that I might, you know, be sent out of the country.’ So they just didn't show up,” said Ron Hetrick, an economist with Lightcast.

Despite those deportation fears, restaurants are having an easier time filling positions than they did during that whole post-pandemic Great Resignation era.

Chicago restauranter Scott Weiner said he filled 150 positions for the opening of The Alston pretty quickly. Applications came in from everywhere.

“Honestly, all walks of life. We've had founders of startups that have come in looking for jobs, or just, you know, trying to see what you might have,” Weiner said.

Tech is one of those industries that’s not hiring so much at the moment.