Secret Door: Dundee's buzziest new nightclub

We chat with Secret Door, a new nightclub and music venue in Dundee that's looking to bring together the city's musical community

Feature by Jamie Wilde | 10 Jun 2022

Dundee is a city known for the ebbs and flows of its music scene. From the highs of The View’s breakout back in 2007 to the lows of being branded a ghost town ten years later, success and excitement for music here tends to come in cycles.

One local looking to bring the next wave of musical buzz to the city is Jon Rosscraig, who runs Dundee’s newest nightclub and music venue Secret Door. The 30-year-old opened Secret Door on 23 April, a little over a month after taking the keys and giving the disused nightclub space on South Ward Road a facelift. And the transformation isn't just aesthetic. A close-knit community feel is at the heart of Secret Door’s ethos: in the short time since its opening, the venue has already provided a platform for emerging local DJs and has bold plans for the year ahead.

However, Secret Door is a project that Rosscraig started not just to rejuvenate music in Dundee, but also himself. “To be honest, I’d been getting too comfortable in my life sitting around not doing anything for too long,” Rosscraig says. “I wanted to push myself out my comfort zone again because I think that brings out the best in me as a person. This was a key factor for me going ahead with Secret Door.”

Rosscraig’s sense of place is deeply rooted in Dundee – his dad owns the independent clothing shop Manifesto, which first opened back in 1986. He has been a keen Dundee United football fan throughout his life and spent time in the USA on a football scholarship before returning back home to lend a hand in the family business.

“Music has also been huge for me,” Rosscraig explains. “When I first started going out in town, The View had really kicked off and Dundee was buzzing – it was so vibrant.” Yet Rosscraig felt that the city’s music scene had been lacking that vibrancy more recently. Newer venues like The Hunter S Thompson have become popular spots. But alongside Rosscraig’s personal ambitions, he felt there was a need to reconnect Dundee’s musical community.

Rosscraig says: “Through lockdown, I had conversations with myself: ‘When lockdown lifts, what do you want to happen? What do you want to see happening here in Dundee?’” 

“I wrote down a lot of things and realised that I wanted to come up with something that would be totally different – something that Dundee hadn’t seen before. I just think there’s a real need to connect everything in Dundee, for it to be put back on the map again.”

Having never run his own venue before, Rosscraig was admittedly nervous when it came to Secret Door’s opening night. “I can be quite apprehensive and paranoid and it’s easy to think the worst,” he says. But after defeating those initial nerves, he was pleased to see a positive response to his new venture. Polka Dot Disco Club, Fold and AVNU are just a handful of the local and national names who have brought house, techno and disco to the venue’s minimalist space so far.

Exclusivity is another important element to Secret Door with its website reserved for members only; over time, Rosscraig hopes to grow Secret Door’s following whilst retaining its tight-knit feel. “I want people of all kinds to be able to come here, feel safe, feel like they want to be there, and above all enjoy themselves,” he explains. “The acts that we’ve booked, we think, are some of the best up-and-coming DJs not just in Dundee, but in Scotland.”

Rosscraig also adds that emulating the success and stature of the city’s former nightclub The Reading Rooms is a huge ambition for Secret Door. “The Reading Rooms was a hub for the underground scene here,” he recalls. “They did so much in terms of attracting top talent to the city and helping young talent come through. I made so many friends for life there and if we can do half of what that venue did for Dundee, we’d be happy.”

Secret Door may still be in its teething stages, but this hasn’t stopped Rosscraig from harbouring further adventurous plans. Accessing multiple secret venues across Dundee for a weekend festival is just one of his aims to bring something brand new to the city, but for now, keeping focus on his debut venue venture is paramount.

“There’s a lot of wee ideas that I’ve got. But I’m predominantly focusing on making sure the club is cool, safe and ensuring the music is exactly what people are wanting to hear,” Rosscraig enthuses.“There’s so much emerging talent around here and I don’t think there’s enough of a shop window for it. If we can be the main shop window for these DJs, artists and creatives, that would be unreal.”


Secret Door, 21 S Ward Rd, Dundee