Yes. HTTPD.conf is read on apache start-up, so for any changes to take affect you need to restart it.

The "service" command runs the /etc/init.d/httpd script, this script restarts httpd and prints the info.

With /usr/sbin/httpd -k restart, you are restarting httpd without printing anything.

I want to be able to get the same output without using the "service" command.

Option 1

Run the httpd init script:

/etc/init.d/httpd restart

Option 2

You could create a script like the following:

#!/bin/bash
echo "Restarting httpd..."
/usr/sbin/httpd -k restart

Name it 'restart_httpd.sh', for example, and make it executable:

chmod +x restart_httpd.sh

Run it:

./restart_httpd.sh

Forget the [ giving:

if sudo service http restart; then
    # stuff
    if sudo service http restart; then
        echo ok
    else
        # error handling for second service failure
    fi
else
    # error handling for first failure
fi

Commands are true if their return status is zero, false otherwise. Shell commands also must terminate before the next line is called.

It is possible, in principle, that service does stuff in the background and exits before completion. In practice, it doesn't because that would really screw things up.