This is a safety issue for any visitor to your house, and it's not something you can let continue. If some toddler comes over to your house and you're not thinking about this, you might have a severely hurt child and a lawsuit on your hands.
You should be able to reach down without warning and pick up your dog's bowl. Period.
It won't exist in isolation as it's also a sign of the dog's sense of dominance. This may sound trite to you, but dogs are pack animals who think in terms of heirarchy, and they hate a leadership void. If they look around and don't see a leader, they'll take the role themselves, and you don't want that.
In a pack, the leader eats first and then gives permission for the others to eat, in order of heirarchy. Meal time is therefore a direct representation of your pack position and the level of authority you have. There's nothing egalitarian about it and all the sweet talk about the dog being "a member of the family" won't change this mindset.
What I was taught was to take the dog's bowl when I was ready to serve dinner, and have the dog sit. This is done by giving the verbal command, and also having the dog start by standing with it's rear end near a wall. Tell the dog sit as you move the bowl over its head (a couple of feet above the head) - the dog will insinctively follow the bowl, and the wall will force it to sit. The dog must remain seated as you place the bowl a few feet in front of you.
Then you wait for eye contact from the dog - the dog needs to recognize that you're the one who releases it to eat. When the dog makes eye contact you say "OK" and the dog can eat. My (dearly departed) German Shep got so programmed that before long she'd go sit in the appointed spot as I was preparing the food, long before I was going to place the bowl, and just watch me the whole time knowing that I'd give her permission to move.
You need to do other things to reinforce this. Once you've gotten the above pattern established, I'd condition the dog not to react by you picking up the bowl. Any growl or menacing posture as you approach means you grab the dog by the snout and reprimand it. Grab the dog hard enough to make it cry (it's really crying uncle more than crying out in pain, so it's a sign of surrender), and then you pick up the bowl.
First through the door (always) is also a good one as that's another big deal for dogs. Getting hip checked into the door frame a few times will teach them not to barge through in front of you, and it might also save you taking a tumble while carrying groceries.
The saving grace here is that the dog wants these social rules and the real problem is that it's unclear to the dog right now what you want in that regard, so you just need to show the dog that the rules are in place and that you will enforce them. It won't take long for it to learn.
