Lol Delta can't win. Meals are served on flights and they are apparently just shy of eating cardboard, dressed with rat poop according to some on here. And then people get pissed when there aren't meals catered for post 2000 departures.

As to answering the OPs question, why not fly through MSP? It is usually a mixture between CR9s/E75s between RDU-MSP and 757s and MD90s for the MSP-SFO run, so at least 16 F seats for the second leg.