Peter Maxwell Bowden is the Founder and Creative Director of PETERMAX Co., the hospitality design studio he established in 2015. Restaurants, bars, and nightlife venues are his medium; his real interest lies in what a room can do to the mood of a night. He begins with the feeling a place should create, then builds toward it through space, material, light, art, and the way a guest moves through the room.

Bowden came to design through creative real estate, where ambitious ideas had to answer to budgets, schedules, and the realities of construction. Before founding PETERMAX Co., he served as Director of Design and Development for a Los Angeles-based firm, leading major hospitality and lifestyle projects from concept through completion. Those years taught him how to protect a strong idea through the thousands of decisions required to open the doors—and left him with little patience for gestures that look good on a mood board but do nothing for the room.

He has never been interested in turning one successful project into a formula for the next. Cleaverman, Filthy Martini, Clique, Amaya, Carry On Airlines, and Javier’s share an appetite for atmosphere but little else; each was shaped around its own premise, audience, and setting.

His work has earned Best Bar Design in North America from 50 Best Bars, the Gold Key Judges’ Choice and Bar, Lounge, Club awards, and the Hospitality Design Award for Bar, Club + Lounge. Carry On Airlines was also named a 2026 Architizer A+Awards finalist. Since 2022, nine PETERMAX projects have earned a combined 18 shortlist placements from the international Restaurant & Bar Design Awards.

Based in Phoenix, Bowden has designed venues in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Austin, Washington, D.C., and across North America. He has no interest in leaving the same fingerprints on every room. The work is connected by something harder to imitate: a strong idea, the nerve to follow it, and the discipline to know when it is complete.