Meet Marcus Antebi, Founder of goodsugar

Marcus Antebi

Marcus Antebi is an American entrepreneur, author, and wellness communicator based in New York City. He is the founder of Juice Press (2010-2019), a plant-based juice and nutrition company that grew to 85 locations, and goodsugar, a plant-based organic juice and food restaurant established in 2021. Antebi is known for his work in plant-based nutrition, nervous system regulation, and recovery advocacy.

Early Life and Background

Born in Brooklyn in 1969, Antebi has maintained sobriety since age fifteen. His early life was shaped by physical discipline and a search for regulation through extreme experiences. He competed professionally in Muay Thai and completed over 2,300 skydives before retiring from the sport. He attributes these pursuits to an unregulated nervous system seeking relief through adrenaline, a pattern he later understood through the lens of trauma and nervous system dysregulation.

Antebi describes his formative years as marked by low self-esteem running alongside real accomplishment, an exhausting combination that drove much of his early behavior. Major breakthroughs came around age fifty, after thirty-two years of sobriety, when unresolved childhood experiences finally integrated in ways he could use productively.

Above photo: Antebi, circa 1988. Born in Brooklyn, NY, January 1969. Moved to Cedar Hurst, Long Island, and then Beverly Hills, living there until age nineteen, when he returned to New York City to live in his first studio apartment on East 58th Street. Found rock climbing at twenty-one, got bored, found skydiving at age twenty-three, did that for about twelve years, retired with 2,300 jumps and a skydiving retail business. Found Thai boxing at thirty-five, did that for ten years, now does yoga to settle down. Marcus has three daughters and two step-children.

Career

In 2009, Antebi rented a storefront at 70 East 1st Street in New York City, wrote a business plan, and began demolition and construction with minimal resources. Juice Press grew into a wellness company focused on organic, plant-based nutrition, eventually operating eighty-five locations across multiple markets. The company was sold in 2019.

After the Juice Press exit, Antebi founded goodsugar at 1186 Third Avenue on the Upper East Side, emphasizing plastic-free operations, ingredient transparency, and product integrity. The restaurant serves juices, smoothies, soups, salads, plant-based foods, and baked goods. Antebi is actively developing a second location and has closed a Series A round of investment.

Philosophy and Writing

Antebi's work centers on nervous system regulation, breathwork, meditation, and recovery. He argues that understanding the nervous system is the foundation of psychological freedom and that ancient wisdom traditions were describing what neuroscience now clarifies. His approach is grounded in personal experience rather than clinical credentials.

He has written extensively on addiction, meditation, relationships, and plant-based nutrition. Current projects include a three-volume meditation series (Meditation and the Work of Living), a separate addiction book (working title: Too Loud, Too Heavy), a two-volume relationships book (Wired for Love), and a memoir about building and losing control of Juice Press.

His writing voice is direct, irreverent, and skeptical of wellness industry marketing while deeply committed to practice. He publishes regularly on the goodsugar Substack, covering supplement industry critique, nutrition science, and meditation practice.

Above photo: Marcus and wife, Teresa Lourenco-Antebi, Belmar, New Jersey, 2026. Marcus founded Juice Press in 2010 on East 1st Street, where he first met Teresa. She was a loyal customer, and in 2016 they started talking serious. It took six years for them to connect. They were married in October 2017.

Personal Life

Antebi is married to Teresa Lourenco-Antebi and has a blended family of five children. He maintains daily yoga and meditation practice, citing breathing, focus, and character development as the foundation of his life. He describes himself as highly committed to entertaining himself through movement, nutrition, and personal development rather than material accumulation.

His mentors include Fred Bisci, a ninety seven year old (in 2026) whole food vegan pioneer, and Dr. Jeffrey Mechanick of the Icahn School of Medicine, who serves on the Goodsugar advisory board.

Above photo: Marcus in freefall over Skydive DeLand, Florida, circa 1995. Antebi found skydiving through his cousin Morris in 1992. His first tandem skydive was that summer at Skydive the Ranch in Gardiner, NY. About a month later, he started his education with jump master Kim Emerson. Emerson and Antebi would later co-write a safety and survival training book called the Skydiver's Survival Guide. Antebi produced several skydiving training videos that were widely popular in the sport, Pack Like A Pro with Billy Weber (RIP), Fly Like A Pro, a parachute safety and intermediate training video with Gus Wing, Mike Truffer, Bob Hallet, and Joe Stanley (RIP to each of these great people), and Break-Away, a parachute emergency and malfunction training video. These videos were pioneering for the skydiving industry in the 1990s, when analog video was the only option, shot in Beta format and the emerging mini-DV format. Antebi contributed a great deal to the advancement of safety in the sport and had the support of the top experts and companies behind him. In 1996, Antebi started a parachute equipment and accessories mail order business called PIER, LTD (Parachutists Information and Equipment Resource), and in 1997 he took ownership of the retail equipment, rigging loft, and rental shop on the dropzone in Gardiner. He ran that until 2002 and sold the company to Sonic and Donna Bayrasli. Antebi retired from skydiving in 2005.

Recognition

Antebi is recognized as a pioneer in plant-based restaurant operations and wellness communication, known for setting operational standards around food safety, ingredient sourcing, and nervous system-informed business practices. His probiotics were tested by Harvard University, with positive preliminary findings. Juice Press, his first food venture, grew to 85 locations before his exit, and attracted investors such as Ken Langone, co-founder of Home Depot, and Kenny Dichter, co-founder of Marquis Jet and founder of Wheels Up, among other ventures. Juice Press was recognized by so many of its supporters as an incredible juice and food company. In 2019, Antebi sold his interest to Michael Karsch.

Above photo: Marcus and his youngest of three, Nova-Shakti, 2026. Marcus has two other daughters, Luna, born in 2007, and Minnie James, born in 2014. In addition to his three daughters, he has two amazing stepchildren, Zariah, born in 2016, an amazing volleyball player, and Lion, the only boy, born in 2014.

Above photo: Marcus training in Bangkok, Thailand, circa 2005. He fought Thai boxing competitively for Five Points Academy, 2003-2005. He met his trainer Steve Millis at a gym in New York City and then moved with him when Steve and his partners formed Five Points Academy. They trained in the new space when the floors were still dirty from construction, and Steve convinced him to drop a few pounds and take a fight. That's how it all began. Marcus retired with a great record, eight and two. He took some tough fights in New York, Virginia, and Washington. He trained in Thailand for three weeks by himself. Twenty plus years later, he still shadow boxes and does bag work on an irregular basis.

Above Photo: (Left to right) Nova-Shakti, born April 2021, Luna, born 2007, and Minnie-Jame, born 2014. The purpose of this web page is unknown to him, but it was recommended that he include content about himself and his family. The children featured in this article are his own, not paid talent or AI generated.

Above Photo: Second edition of the Skydiver's Survival Guide. Now out of print, it sells for twice the original list price on Amazon. The Skydiver's Survival Guide, co-written by Marcus Antebi and jump master Kim Emerson, was the result of years of research into the best and most current safety training information in sport skydiving. The book breaks skydiving down into five core phases, gear selection, load organizing and exiting the aircraft, freefall, handling deployment problems, and canopy control and landing. Loaded with photos and the same irreverent humor found throughout Antebi's work, it became a staple safety reference for jumpers at every level, from first time students to seasoned veterans. The second edition, published in 2004, was expanded and updated with the latest tips and procedures, and remains a sought after title in the sport today.

Above Photo: "Fighting was the most interesting sport that I was involved in. It required me to really discipline myself, with training and diet and taking direction and showing up, period. It was such a surreal experience to work a couple of months and then suddenly be in the ring with someone who's looking at you as if they want to take your head off, and then you get hit, and suddenly you're just doing what you trained. I loved it, and I owe a great deal to my trainer, Steve Millis, and my secondary trainer, Simon Burgess, from Five Points Academy." Here, Antebi is fighting in Soho in New York City, on Mulberry Street, against a veteran fighter named Brian Robertson, circa 2005.