Char-Broil recalls 10,600 electric grills over shock risk

A grounding wire that can work loose inside the heating element is why Char-Broil has pulled roughly 10,600 Bistro Pro electric grills from the U.S. market, according to the company and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which put the precise domestic count at 10,605 units, plus another 342 sold in Canada. Nine model variations of the plug-in grill are covered, all sold between October 2025 and June 2026 for $150 to $250. No injuries have been reported.

A grounding wire built to disconnect

The defect is specific to one component. “The grounding wire for the grill’s heating element can disconnect and lose fault protection, posing an electric shock hazard,” the Consumer Product Safety Commission said in the recall notice it posted September 17. Grounding wires exist to give stray electrical current a safe path to travel if a fault develops inside an appliance; when that path fails, a person touching the grill’s metal surfaces becomes the current’s next-best route.

Only grills carrying specific manufacturing date codes are affected — units stamped 2510, 2511 or 2512, marking October, November and December 2025 production, in the four-digit YYMM format printed on a label on the bottom shelf of full-size models or the side bar of tabletop versions. A grill built outside that three-month window is not part of the recall even if it shares the same model number, which is part of why the recall notice tells owners to check the date code before assuming their unit is covered.

Nine models built for small spaces

The recalled units are all part of the Bistro Pro line, which Char-Broil markets as a 3-in-1 electric grill, griddle and charcoal cooker aimed at apartment and condo residents who cannot use gas or open-flame grills on their balconies. Owners can switch between the three cooking modes by repositioning the internal grate and, for the charcoal setting, adding briquettes on top of the electric element. The nine variations span full-size and tabletop configurations in black, red and emerald finishes, some sold with a fitted cover, positioning the product specifically for the compact, often shared electrical circuits of apartment patios rather than a detached suburban backyard.

The apartment-friendly design is part of what makes the grounding defect notable: a plug-in appliance marketed for balconies and small patios puts the failure point closer to doorways, shared walls and other people than a propane grill parked at the far end of a yard would.

Sold at six major retailers over nine months

Char-Broil sold the grills through Ace Hardware, Lowe’s, Walmart, Wayfair and QVC, along with Amazon.com and Charbroil.com, according to the CPSC notice. Reaching buyers across seven retail channels, rather than a single sales outlet a company could notify directly, is one reason Char-Broil is leaning on its own recall page and gift-card incentive to get owners to register instead of waiting for word to reach them passively.

Char-Broil’s remedy is a free repair rather than a refund. Consumers who register at charbroil.com/BistroProFix receive a kit with replacement screws, a tool and an instructional label, along with written instructions for reconnecting the grounding wire and closing the heating-element housing back up. Char-Broil is also offering a $25 digital gift card to anyone who submits photo documentation of a completed repair, an incentive built into the registration process rather than something owners have to separately request. Consumers who would rather not do the repair themselves can call Char-Broil’s support line on weekdays for help completing the fix.

Not Char-Broil’s first shock recall

This is the second time in roughly two years that Char-Broil has recalled a plug-in cooking product over an electric shock hazard. In February 2024, the company recalled about 211,700 digital electric smokers in the U.S. after receiving 79 reports of consumers experiencing minor shocks, including one that caused a finger blister, according to the CPSC notice from that recall. The 2024 fix involved installing a GFCI plug, a device designed to cut power the instant it detects current leaking outside its intended path — a different remedy than the grounding-wire repair Char-Broil is offering Bistro Pro owners now.

No comparable GFCI retrofit is part of the Bistro Pro remedy; the current repair kit addresses the grounding wire connection itself, reattaching and securing it, rather than adding a secondary cutoff device as the smoker fix did. Char-Broil describes the Bistro Pro line elsewhere as “built to last,” a claim the grounding defect complicates for the roughly 10,600 households now waiting on a repair kit rather than using the grill they bought. Owners who experience a shock or other incident with an affected grill before completing the repair can file a report through the CPSC’s own database at SaferProducts.gov, the system the smoker recall’s 79 reports came through in 2024.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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