I grow the chinese hybrids. They're really not the best chestnut, but they're disease resistant (120 years later Chestnut blight is still a problem).
They are worth growing however. In the 1800s most Flour was chestnut flower. They're more productive than grains. I'm about an hour outside of Rochester NY, once dubbed "The Flour City", for it's huge number of flour mills, which were mostly processing chestnut. When the blight came and wiped it out, only then did farmers start focusing on grains in this region, to make use of their lands and obviously reduced milling rates.
Chestnuts grow incredibly well in the North East, but look for blight resistance and get something hardier than you think you need. They survive in cold weather, but are only productive around Zone 5. Since many people grow them as ornamentals and landscape trees, nurseries will tell you they're hardy to Zone 3, even if they never produce nuts at those temperatures.
