You can rent a machine that cuts the lawn in strips, then you can dig or pull it out. I understand it's a big old pain in the back, but it works. Look for it at a tool rental place that has rototillers, post hole diggers, etc.

depends on how much lawn u want to remove & what ur going to plant there instead. if it's a big area hire a landscaper w a bulldozer. have them remove the grass for composting. I recommend u remove the top 1inch of soil, remove the rocks and replace them w grass / leaf clippings. then covet them up w soil. u get instant great soil for flowers or veggies.
If it's a small area, pick ax & shovel Will do the job.

typo
Not top 1 inch. meant top 1 Ft

Sign in yard “ free grass you dig”

Rent a sod cutter - available at any rental equipment or home improvement store. Easy, fast and cheap! You want to make sure you set it to cut deep enough to remove the grass roots but not so deep that you are removing a lot of soil. Native or indigenous soils are far more preferable than imported soil, even if you do need to do a bit of amending of the native stuff. And if you are intending to replant with drought tolerant CA natives, the existing soil - not imported stuff - is exactly what they want.

The removed sod can be composted onsite if you have room or is suitable to be included in your yard waste recycling program.

Unless you have a lot of acreage, don't make this any more complicated than it has to be :-)) You don't need heavy equipment or a landscape contractor!! I have removed a lot of lawns in my days and for an average sized residential garden, a sod cutter is the way to go.

So we weedkill/grass kill with roundup. I know some people have a problem with the.. non natural way. But u said fast and the grass will die off in a week with proper application. Also roundup doesn’t stay in the soil it dissolves into the plant.. that you are removing. I don’t recommend sod cutters because they.. cut.. and roots remain if u have active growing grass it will grow back.

Roundup absolutely stays in the soil. It is strongly bonded to soil molecules, it does NOT all dissolve into the plant. However, it is not very residual, breaking down (by microbial activity) within 200 days. There are some very real reasons not to use it, the primary one being that glyphosate (active ingredient in Roundup) over use, mostly in GMO corn, has now produced generations of glyphosate-resistant weeds, which are almost impossible to eradicate. The biggest question that I have is whether glyphosate wreaks havoc with the micorrhizae in the soil, which are key to plant health. That's the main reason that I don't use it unless I absolutely can't avoid it, which is generally only for hard-to-pull weeds in gravel every few years or so.

Sod cutters work perfectly well if they are set or calibrated to the proper depth to account for the bulk of the root system. And they are by far the fastest method of grass removal.

I sprayed my grass twice with roundup, about a week apart. That killed most of it. I was going to just mulch over the dead grass and plant in holes, but that ended up not working how I wanted so I hired someone to scrape off the dead grass and top inch of dirt.

Have not had any trouble with the low water and native plants not growing after using roundup.